Woman Who Abandoned Son at Mall Sentenced to 4 Years in Prison

An indigent Maryland mother who abandoned her 3 1/2-year-old son at a San Bernardino shopping mall en route to what she later described as a “great” Grateful Dead concert was sentenced Thursday to four years in state prison.

The prosecutor had argued for the maximum six-year prison term, noting that in a journal of her travels, Lisa Nester wrote flowingly about the concert and hitchhiking back home after leaving the boy, Wolfie, behind.

San Bernardino Superior Court Judge Robert Fawke said a four-year term, however, would enable mother and son to be reunited more quickly.

Nester, 24, and her husband, Wolfgang Von Nester, 23, pleaded guilty July 31 to child abandonment and child endangerment. His sentencing was continued to Sept. 5 because he is considering withdrawing his guilty plea.

The couple arrived in San Bernardino in late May after a cross-country car trip and parked their car at a friend’s home without telling him, authorities said. Several days later, the friend--who did not recognize the vehicle--called police, who discovered it carried stolen license plates. The vehicle was towed away as the couple watched from a distance.

The couple then walked to a nearby bus station to buy passage to San Francisco for the concert--but didn’t have $25 for a ticket for their son, said San Bernardino County Deputy Dist. Atty. Denise Trager-Dvorak. With two bus tickets and $10 in cash, they walked to a nearby mall and left their son in a department store, where he was discovered by security officers and turned over to San Bernardino police.

A week later, relatives in nearby Highland identified the boy from news reports, and the Nesters were arrested while hiking home along the Appalachian Trail near the Maryland-Pennsylvania line. The boy’s father later said the couple were too broke to care for the boy, and walked away from him “in tears.”

In a journal describing the events that was introduced at her court sentencing, Lisa Nester said, “We were left with no choice but to leave him in a shopping mall where we knew he would be found. Of course, that was the hardest choice I ever made in my life. One that I will never forget my whole entire life.

“We ended up taking a bus to San Francisco, Ca.,” she continued. “We went to the Dead show that night. It was great. We stayed there for two days and met some of the greatest people I’ve ever met in my life.”

The boy is in the custody of his paternal grandparents.