Abduction Unit Makes Good on Vow to Mother

Patricia Hernandez never gave up hope. Even though she hadn’t seen her three sons in nearly two years and even though her husband said she would never see them again, the 30-year-old Oxnard woman held onto faith.

Faith in God. And faith in the Ventura County district attorney’s child abduction and recovery unit.

Last week, Hernandez’s conviction was rewarded when she trekked to a dusty Mexican village to recover her three boys, abducted by their father in August, 1993.

For the first time in California, prosecutors employed provisions of the Hague Convention to locate and return the three children--Ruben, 11; Andres, 9, and Oscar, 5.

The international treaty provides for the recovery and return of children wrongfully taken to or hidden in another country.

“They always told me, ‘You’re going to get them back,’ ” Patricia Hernandez said Monday of the Ventura County prosecutors and investigators who engaged in a nearly two-year search to find her sons. “They always kept me strong.”

Ventura County officials who helped retrieve the children said the reunion meant nearly as much to them as it meant to Hernandez.

“I got choked up,” said Dennis Peet, an investigator for the district attorney’s office. “I’ve done a lot of things in the 22 years I’ve been a cop, but this is one of the most rewarding.”

Before last week, the last time Hernandez had seen her sons was a Saturday morning 21 months ago, when she dropped them off at her mother-in-law’s home before going to work. Even though her marriage to Ruben Nava Hernandez was on the skids, his mother still watched the children.

But when she returned to pick up the boys, family members told her that Ruben Hernandez had taken them. She said Ruben Hernandez phoned her the next day and asked her to turn over custody of the children.

She refused. That’s when they vanished.

Patricia Hernandez said she asked the police for help but was told nothing could be done. That’s when she went to the district attorney’s office, which has investigated the case since.

Finally, in March the FBI confirmed that the children had been located in Valle de Santiago, Guanajuato, Mexico. Invoking terms of the Hague Convention, prosecutors won permission to retrieve the children from their father.

After Mexican authorities seized the boys, Hernandez, Peet and investigative assistant Dolores Reyes traveled to Mexico and on May 17 collected the children. The family returned to the United States on Friday, where tearful relatives greeted them at the airport.

“I cried and cried,” Hernandez said. “I was so happy.”

Mexican authorities did not arrest Ruben Nava Hernandez. But Peet said that if he returns to the United States, he will be prosecuted for felony child abduction.