Case of the Stolen Children: Shock, Chase and a Surprise Ending

To get her two children back, Connie Box had to hire a private investigator and fly to Australia, where her estranged husband had taken them. A greeting party of family and friends was waiting when they returned.

Geary Box, who had stolen the children, received a different greeting when he returned to the United States last November. Two investigators from the Orange County district attorney’s office were waiting at Los Angeles International Airport to arrest him.

Connie Box is one of hundreds of people in Orange County who have been victims of child stealing in recent years, a crime usually committed by a spouse or former spouse, sometimes by grandparents. It is a crime that has begun to receive a great deal more attention in the courts.

Last year, the district attorney’s office increased its child-stealing investigative staff from two to three. And the office has changed policies once limiting its investigations to local areas so that children missing from Orange County now are being sought in far-flung locations throughout the United States.

Already, investigators from the district attorney’s office have been to Alaska and Hawaii and to the East Coast to find stolen children.

Each of the three full-time investigators has about 75 to 100 cases, including searches within Orange County for children missing from other areas, and Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard E. Fulton, head of the child-stealing unit, usually has about 20 cases pending in which criminal charges have been filed.

“We are not a baby-sitting service; we have to check out these cases carefully,” Fulton said. “But once we’re convinced, some parents who seek our help are amazed to discover how far we’re willing to go to get their children back for them.”

While Orange County prosecutors draw the line on traveling beyond U.S. borders, Fulton said, his office has been instrumental in helping parents retrieve children from Switzerland, Greece, South Africa and Australia. For example, Connie Box and a private investigator hired by her family were armed with a letter from the district attorney’s office that helped pave the way with Australian officials.

Although Fulton says the numbers of child-stealing cases do not seem to be growing, they are higher than many people would expect.

For example, the Adam Walsh Child Resources Center in Orange, a private agency, participated in the recovery of more than 100 stolen children last year.

“It’s a vicious, malicious crime,” Fulton said. “The emotional damage to the child is often irreversible.”

“I was devastated,” 28-year-old Connie Box of Huntington Beach said in a recent interview. “I wondered if I would ever see my kids again.”

Judges and prosecutors say the person who steals a child seldom has the child’s best interests in mind.

“If the truth be known, it’s just plain old vindictiveness,” said Superior Court Judge Ronald E. Owen, head of the court’s family law panel. “Mama won custody, so the daddy says, ‘I’ll show her.’ ”

Some believe the penalties for child stealing are too lenient.

And, in fact, prosecution in child-stealing cases is not the primary goal of the district attorney’s office, Fulton said.

“Our first goal is to get the child back,” Fulton said. “We also want to get the undivided attention of the parent who stole the child. Punishing that parent, or even filing criminal charges, is only the final alternative.”

Only a parental child stealer who appears intent on depriving the other parent of long periods of contact with the child is prosecuted, Fulton said.

In most cases, however, the parent who stole the child is sent back to court for violation of custody orders, or the issue is resolved privately by the squabbling couple.

Some disagree with that philosophy.

“A slap on the wrist isn’t going to get it,” said Pamela Harris-Oedekerk, assistant director at the Adam Walsh Child Resource Center. “We need tougher prosecution in many of these cases.”

But Fulton defends his office’s policy.

“Emotions run high,” he said. “So often a mother who had custody is so thrilled to get the children back, she wants to just leave it at that. Prosecuting the husband is not always the best solution for the child.

“We can’t take our responsibility lightly; it’s important we do what’s best for the child.”

The Adam Walsh people worry that leniency will result in repeat offenders. But Fulton says their concern is misplaced. In the more than two years he has been prosecuting child stealers, he has not had a single repeat case, he said.

Geary Box was found guilty of child stealing in Australia. When he was told he had to pay a $1,000 fine or face deportation, he volunteered to return to the United States.

Two weeks ago, Geary Box pleaded guilty to felony child stealing in Orange County Superior Court. He was ordered to pay restitution to his wife and her family, who had spent more than $20,000 getting the children back. And he was given credit for time served in the Orange County Jail--about 10 weeks--and released on probation after he agreed to abide by all future child-custody orders.

Could Have Gone to Prison

He could have been sent to state prison for five years.

It was last September when Geary Box picked up his two children for his regular, court-ordered weekend visit and did not return.

“He had threatened to run off with them before,” Connie Box said in an interview three weeks ago.

Connie Box’s mother spent the next two weeks on the telephone, calling immigration, visa and passport offices trying to locate the children, a 4-year-old girl and an 18-month-old boy. They worked with authorities in Kansas and Oklahoma, where Geary Box had relatives, and learned he was in Australia.

Connie Box prevailed upon a close friend of her husband’s to contact him and persuade him to call her.

He called on Oct. 31, 1987.

“I begged him and cried and cried that I wanted my kids back,” Connie Box said. “He said I would never see them again unless I came back to him.”

The young mother said she pretended to agree to a reconciliation, so she could locate the children.

Got Australian Court Order

She and a private investigator, Lawrence Dobbins, flew to Australia immediately. She went to court in Sydney and got an Australian court order giving her custody of the children.

Australian authorities within a few days located the children at a day-care center and returned them to her.

Australian authorities, she said, seemed quicker to act than U.S. officials. For example, it took her three weeks to get an arrest warrant for her husband here but only four hours for a similar warrant in Australia.

“Child stealing isn’t considered a big deal here,” she said. “We need to call more attention to it, because it is so tragic for these kids.”

Three weeks ago, before her former husband was sentenced in Orange County Superior Court, Connie Box said she believed her only alternative when he was released from jail was to go into hiding with her two children.

“It’s the only way I can keep Geary from stealing them again,” she said then.

Fulton, told of her remarks, said that it was a poor solution.

“The answer is to try to work it out somehow,” he said.

They did work it out, but not like Fulton expected.

Two weeks ago, Connie and Geary Box were reconciled.

“He came to see me after he pleaded guilty and got out of jail,” she said recently. “We talked it over. People make mistakes, and mistakes can be corrected.”

Fulton was stunned when first told of the reconciliation, but then said he should not have been surprised.

“I had a recent case where we had to go all the way to Louisiana to get a child back. The father was extradited. We took him to court. He pleaded guilty, and he walked out arm and arm with the mother. They were laughing and smiling. It happens.

“Maybe this one really will be a happy ending. For their children’s sake, I hope so.”