Mom’s Fight for Her Sons Offers Lessons

My recent Thanksgiving dinner with a number of battered women, for a previous column, was a grim reminder that their holidays are often depressing. Maybe they can find some encouragement in Merritt McKeon’s story.

It’s got a happy ending, but some hard lessons along the way.

I first interviewed McKeon about 18 months ago, after she had co-written a book called “Stop Domestic Violence.” The other authors were Lou Brown, father of homicide victim

Nicole Brown Simpson, and a South County pastor, Francois Dubau. McKeon at that time offered plenty of wise advice for battered women. But when I asked about her own past, a sadness came over her that was hard to forget.

“My three sons are in Iran with my ex-husband,” she said. “He ran off with them eight years ago. I only get to talk to them by telephone.”

I won’t hold you in suspense for the happy ending: After 9 1/2 years, McKeon was permanently reunited with them over Thanksgiving weekend; she now has custody. They are 10, 12 and 17.

“I know this sounds incredible, but they look just like they did when I last saw them,” she said with a laugh.

McKeon was willing to talk about her ordeal, which she also has laid out in court documents, because she knows her story can be a lesson for others. What scared her most was one particular threat she said her ex, an airline pilot from Iran, would voice frequently.

“Whenever we fought, he would always say, ‘I’ll take the children back to Iran and you’ll never see them again.’ That was my biggest fear,” she said.

In 1988, during turbulent times in the marriage, when he asked her for passport-size photos of the children, McKeon panicked. She ran off to a battered women’s shelter she had heard about in Oregon, and took the three children with her.

Huge mistake.

“Never leave the state with your children unless you know you are legally protected,” she said.

Her husband went to court and got legal custody. But a condition was that he not live outside Southern California without court permission. He moved with them back to Iran anyway. McKeon fought to get them back, but found Iranian red tape impossible to break through.

So she decided on a career helping other battered women. She went back to college to work toward a law degree. She worked for a legal defense fund for battered women in New York. And back in California, while waiting to pass the state bar exam, McKeon worked with Lou Brown and wrote the book with him and Dubau.

Three years ago, she heard her husband had taken the children to London to see his mother. McKeon immediately flew there to find them, even dropping a semester of classes for it. She did manage to spend several weeks with her oldest son. But when her ex-husband discovered her presence, he whisked the other two back to Iran before she could see them, she said.

She returned to the U.S. heartbroken, but even more determined to be reunited with her children. She faced a painful paradox from her ex: He would return to the U.S. with the children so she could see them, but only on condition that she give up her rights to custody. (She’d gotten custody after he left for Iran.) McKeon couldn’t bring herself to take that step, and who could blame her?

In the end, her years of pleading paid off; he moved back to the U.S. and let her have the children. Now both will be involved in their lives. But making amends with her ex won’t stop McKeon from trying to help other women.

Now that she’s an attorney, McKeon has taken on numerous battered women’s cases, but also hopes to someday set up a legal clinic like the one where she worked in New York.

“If there is a lesson here, it’s to never give up hope--and get good legal advice from the very beginning,” she said.

One recommendation from McKeon: Call Superior Court’s Domestic Violence Assistant Program for free legal help, (714) 934-7956.

Jerry Hicks’ column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by calling (714) 966-7823 or by fax to (714) 966-7711, or e-mail to jerry.hicks@latimes.com