Natural Mother Gets Toddler in Custody Fight

Susie Q. became Haydee Jeanette last week, making one mother very happy and breaking her other mother’s heart.

The child, soon to turn 3, had become the subject of a heated custody battle between two women: her natural mother and the woman who raised her for more than two years as her own daughter.

A San Bernardino Superior Court judge ruled last week in favor of the toddler’s natural mother, Patricia Morales, 21, of Paramount.

For Morales, Judge Duke D. Rouse’s decision ended a long, Kafkaesque quest in search of the baby she said was kidnaped by Mary and Jorge Ruiz in Mexico.

She Claimed Baby Was Abandoned

For Mary Ruiz, 40, of Yucaipa, the judge’s decision ended a life with the baby who she said was abandoned by Morales.

As a result of being separated from the only mother she has known, Ruiz said, the toddler will be traumatized for life. “Don’t you guys know what you are doing to that baby?” Ruiz cried out before running from the courtroom after the judge’s ruling.

The judge, according to authorities, responded: “I think, more appropriately, we are trying to undo that which was done to the baby.”

Investigators and attorneys involved in the case say it is one of the most unusual situations they have ever seen. “It’s a very bizarre case, and it’s a very tragic case. There has been a lot of pain on every side, including the child’s,” said San Bernardino County Deputy Dist. Atty. Verna Carey. “It’s a real tragedy all the way around. It’s very, very sad.”

The unusual case would not even have reached a courtroom had not an investigator with the San Bernardino County sheriff’s office, Hector O’Campo, and an investigator with the district attorney’s child abduction unit, Yvonne Parker, crossed paths and compared notes.

Morales credits O’Campo and Parker for bringing her together with Haydee Jeanette, born June 4, 1984, in Martin Luther King Hospital in Los Angeles.

“I really thank all of them who have helped me, especially Yvonne and Hector O’Campo. If it hadn’t of been for them. . . .” Morales did not finish the sentence. Instead, she explained what it was like going from agency to agency across both sides of the border: “No one would help me. I was running back and forth and no one would help me.”

“(But) I never lost hope. I kept thinking I would get my baby back,” said Morales, who has three other children.

Temporarily Assigned to Foster Home

For now, the child is in a temporary foster home and will remain there anywhere from a few weeks to several months while she becomes reacquainted with Morales through visits, which will increase gradually, said Carey, the deputy district attorney who represented the county.

Meanwhile, Ruiz, who filed an appeal late last week, said she is not allowed to see the child--”not even to say goodby.”

“I haven’t seen her in two weeks and they tell me they’re thinking of her best interests,” Ruiz said earlier this week. “I’m the only mother she’s known for three years and they’re not allowing visits? Something is not right.”

The little girl was picked up by authorities on April 9. It was the beginning of the end of Morales’ search for her daughter.

Morales said Ruiz, a U.S. citizen, and her husband, Jorge, 24, of Mexico, got the little girl from Morales’ aunt in Mexico without Morales’ consent. Morales said she had to track down the Ruiz couple and each time she asked for her baby back, was turned away.

Ruiz, however, said that Morales abandoned the child: “What kind of mother leaves a baby . . . in a foreign country and the first time she comes” back is three months later?

Ruiz said she grew to love the little girl her family renamed Leticia Susana, nicknamed Susie Q., and she questions Morales’ sincerity or her ability to be a responsible mother.

Child Taken to Mexico

Morales, a Mexican citizen with U.S. residency who was reared in Los Angeles County, moved to Rosarito Beach in September, 1984, with Haydee Jeanette and Jennifer, her only other daughter at the time. But when she could not find a job, Morales returned to the United States in November, leaving Haydee with a friend.

The friend took the child to a baby sitter who took her to Morales’ aunt, who promised the young mother she would take care of the child until Morales could afford to return. Instead, Morales said, the aunt turned the baby over to Mary and Jorge Ruiz. She would later tell Morales she could not afford to keep the baby.

Morales, then 17, ran into hard times as her odyssey to retrieve the baby began. Every time she went back to get her daughter, Ruiz said she either ran into bad luck--such as having a car accident and landing in jail for a month for an auto theft she did not commit--or was turned away by the Ruiz couple, when she could find either one of them. When she received no cooperation from Mexican authorities, Morales said, she knocked on doors and asked people if they had seen “an older white woman . . . with a young Mexican, with a baby girl.”

Her Luck Changed

Last December, her luck changed when she called Parker in the child abduction unit of the San Bernardino County district attorney’s office. Morales told Parker she heard from friends that Ruiz was in the area.

Meanwhile, O’Campo, while investigating another report, heard of Ruiz and the possibility she had custody of another woman’s child. Through a sheriff’s investigator, Parker and O’Campo found out about each other’s cases, they compared notes, and--in the words of O’Campo--”everything fit.”

The investigators went to Mexico to verify Morales’ story and check documents. O’Campo said he was not surprised by the strange twists and the lack of cooperation from Mexican agencies.

“People just don’t understand that it’s not the same outside the United States,” he said.

O’Campo also pointed out that in other cultures extended families often pitch in to help with the children and it would not have been unusual for Morales to leave her baby with an aunt.

Child Taken When Sick

But to Ruiz, that translated into abandonment. When Ruiz first saw the baby girl she renamed Susie, the infant was very sick.

“My heart went out to the little girl,” Ruiz said.

A visit to a doctor revealed that the baby was dehydrated, had anemia, bronchitis and pneumonia, according to Ruiz. The doctor “told us if we had waited two more days, she probably would be dead,” she said.

Ruiz maintained that she only saw Morales once in the two-plus years she had the girl and she could not understand why there were such long lapses between Morales’ visits to find her daughter. Ruiz said she moved to Santa Clara County in October of 1985, because her husband was earning a meager wage and money problems had placed a strain on their relationship.

Infant Died After Birth

Ruiz has a teen-age son and a 22-year-old daughter. In 1965, she lost a child named Susan days after her birth, according to court authorities.

“I think maybe she was replacing my daughter (for) hers,” Morales said.

Ruiz is unemployed but said she soon plans to manage a beauty salon. She said she sees her husband, who has no green card for entry into the United States, about once every two weeks.

The Yucaipa woman said she has been devastated by the judge’s decision. “What do we do now? . . . My mom said for my sister to help me pack up her things. It’s as if she died. She’s not dead! She’s alive,” Ruiz cried out.

No Doubt About Love

O’Campo said: “I do not doubt for a minute that she did love this child, but in my opinion, it was a selfish love . . . this child was taken from the mother.”

As for Morales, who is unemployed, O’Campo said: “Whatever judgment she used was that of a 17-year-old with lack of experience in life.”

In rendering his decision, the judge said there was no evidence to show that Morales intended to abandon her child, O’Campo and Carey said. Instead, they said, the evidence showed that Morales made continuing efforts to find her daughter but was blocked by different people along the way.

Since the judge’s decision, Morales said her family has been contacted twice by Jorge Ruiz, asking for the child back. (Mary Ruiz denied there had been any effort to contact Morales. Jorge Ruiz could not be reached for comment.)

‘I’ve Been Through Hell’

“These people don’t understand I’ve been through hell and back to get her back,” Morales said.

Mary Ruiz said that she fears the shift to a new family will psychologically harm the child. “Her mother dumped her once, and now (she’ll think) her other mother is going to dump her,” she said.

“Susie is the center of our lives,” explained Ruiz’s sister, Lynnell Jones. The two sisters live near each other, and Ruiz said she often visits Jones’ home. “We have a tight family and she is the heartbeat of our family,” Jones said.

Ruiz said the child cried often during recent visits and promises “to behave because she think she’s done something bad and that’s why she can’t come home.”

Child Sad at First

Morales said the little girl did seem sad at times during the first visits, but they get along and she is adjusting well to the changes. Morales said the girl’s guardian told her she no longer cries.

According to Morales, Haydee has grown attached to her sister Jennifer, now 4. “I think they need each other,” Morales said.

But it won’t be easy, Morales acknowledged. During a visit in a playroom recently, Morales said Haydee told her “ ‘sometimes, my mommy and me play with the puzzles.’ That would hurt me. Because she doesn’t know I’m her mom.”

Recently, Morales said she asked the child, who had inadvertently been called Haydee by a social worker, what name she preferred: Susie or Haydee.

“She said Heidi-ho. I don’t know where she got that from,” Morales said. “So I said, ‘How about if we call you Haydee-ho in the meantime?’ ”