Hilary’s Nomadic Life: Two Ailing Grandparents Shielded Her Abroad : Courts: An unlikely family avoids the Morgan-Foretich custody battle. Then the detectives turn up in New Zealand.

They were an unlikely looking family: an elderly couple with a young girl in tow. Yet for 2 1/2 years, Hilary Foretich and her ailing grandparents traveled freely throughout the world, barely making an effort to mask their identities.

First, they fled to the Bahamas. The off-season prices were right.

When the tourists returned, they went to Canada, drawn by Vancouver’s mild climate. But soon, William and Antonia Morgan--divorcees reunited by their granddaughter’s plight--began to fear they were too near the United States, where the bitter custody battle between Hilary’s parents had commanded wide publicity.

They stayed only a year in Plymouth, England, leaving when the press began pursuing reports that they had taken up residence there.

Finally, in Christchurch, a sun-drenched metropolis of 300,000 on New Zealand’s South Island, they found sanctuary in a modest residential motel just around the corner from a school that Hilary attended.

There, they were embraced by about a dozen families who were aware that Hilary’s mother, Elizabeth Morgan, had sent her into hiding rather than obey a court order to produce Hilary for unsupervised visits with her father, whom Morgan had accused of molesting the child.

For several years, Morgan and her ex-husband, oral surgeon Eric A. Foretich, had been conducting an acrimonious, public custody battle that led to the August, 1987, jailing of Morgan for civil contempt.

Morgan, a plastic surgeon, spent 25 months in prison for refusing to reveal Hilary’s whereabouts. She was released last September after Congress enacted a law, written expressly for her, limiting civil contempt imprisonments in District of Columbia child custody cases.

Less well known, until now, is the odyssey undertaken by Hilary and her grandparents until authorities finally caught up with them last week, largely as a result of Foretich’s efforts to track down his daughter, now 7 years old.

Hilary’s discovery has set in motion a tangle of international litigation, with a court hearing scheduled in Christchurch this week on Foretich’s legal efforts to gain custody of his daughter.

Contacted Saturday, Morgan declined to discuss Hilary’s nomadic existence since she left Washington in 1987.

But other family sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that William Morgan, now 80, and Antonia Morgan, 75, initially took Hilary to the Bahamas because of the low off-season prices and because they would not be required to produce passports. The sources’ account continued:

They traveled under their own names, although Hilary adopted “Ellen” as an assumed first name. “It’s a name she picked for herself,” said one family source. And she was virtually the only white child at the predominately black school she attended there.

With the approach of winter--and higher prices--the Morgans and Hilary left the Bahamas for Vancouver at the suggestion of another family member.

But the couple soon grew fearful that the proximity to U.S. news media might lead to Hilary being recognized in Vancouver. So they left for England, where Antonia Morgan had grown up and where she had met William Morgan, a World War II paratrooper.

For 2 1/2 years, the couple relied on their Social Security checks and contributions from family members to pay their way. At one point, Antonia Morgan even made a 1 1/2-day trip to Washington to draw additional money from her personal bank account.

They communicated with family members in America by mail routed through third parties.

But as press reports increasingly speculated that they had taken up residence in England, the Morgans and their granddaughter arrived in Christchurch in July, 1988, renting a two-bedroom apartment at the Diplomat residential motel.

Meanwhile, the elderly couple began to experience serious health problems that frightened Morgan family members in the United States. William Morgan’s sight had begun to deteriorate. About six months ago, in New Zealand, he underwent a cataract operation. Antonia Morgan began to suffer from a blood pressure disorder and was treated with steroids by New Zealand doctors. The physicians who treated the Morgans were aware of the situation with Hilary, sources said.

Family sources said the grandparents were so concerned that they even made arrangements with one local family--whose child was a playmate of Hilary--to assume care of the girl should anything happen to them.

“The family owned a beautiful farm with dogs and other animals about 20 miles outside town,” a source said. “They (the grandparents) were very reassured about Hilary. It was a real gift in terms of mental peace of mind.”

The Morgans--both retired child psychologists--had divorced several years ago. But last year, drawn back together in their quest to protect Hilary, they remarried.

And last Christmas, Antonia Morgan quietly journeyed to New York for a family reunion at the home of her son, James Morgan, a Wall Street money manager. Elizabeth Morgan, out of jail by then, flew up to join them.

Elizabeth Morgan and Hilary have not seen one another since 1987. But Morgan said in an interview that she spoke with her only child for almost an hour Saturday afternoon.

“I told her that I loved her, that I missed her, that I was proud of her, that she could do no wrong, and that things would be OK,” Morgan said. “She said she loved me and missed me. . . . “

Although the Morgans would have preferred to have kept Hilary hidden, James Morgan said Saturday that the family is thankful that the long journey has ended.

“I’m very relieved it’s out in the open,” he said in an interview. “I think to my parents, it’s all been a bit of a shock. But still, it’s a relief that they’re not hiding any more.”

Foretich, for his part, has denied repeatedly that he sexually abused his daughter. He has agreed that she was molested, but he accused his former wife of doing the molesting.

So far, Foretich has not publicly detailed the global detective work that led New Zealand authorities to the Diplomat motel.

He has said only that he hired scores of lawyers and detectives both in England and New Zealand to track down his daughter and that sources had told him the Morgans had applied for permanent residence in New Zealand.

Late last year, BBC television broadcast a report about the custody battle. A teacher at Beechfield College, the prep school Hilary had attended in Plymouth, recognized the girl and called the BBC producer, Di Burgess, saying that Hilary had left in the summer of 1988. Foretich sued in England to force Burgess to reveal this information and won.

But by then, Foretich said Friday, another source already had provided him with information indicating that Hilary and her grandparents were in New Zealand. Then, sometime last week, private detectives tracked down Hilary and her grandparents.

According to one Morgan family friend, the confrontation was uneventful. “They did not grab Hilary or make a big hassle,” the friend said. “They approached the family and let them know they had been discovered.”

A quick trip to a Christchurch court followed, where a judge appointed an attorney to represent Hilary and ordered a child abuse expert to evaluate her.

At the same time, the judge prohibited Foretich from having any contact with his daughter pending the outcome of the evaluation. On Friday, Foretich said he planned to travel to Christchurch immediately. He could not be reached Saturday.

Morgan, too, said she plans to join her daughter and her parents in New Zealand. But she first must persuade a judge in Washington to return her passport, which was confiscated before she was jailed. Stephen H. Sachs, Morgan’s attorney, said he will make a new request for her passport on Monday.