At the Heart of a Bizarre Custody Case, a Little Girl

One night a year or so ago, I was having dinner with the attorney Gloria Allred, who usually has more high-profile cases on her plate simultaneously than any L.A. lawyer since Perry Mason. Just off a plane from Rome, even the indefatigable Allred for once sounded exhausted.

“What were you doing in Italy?” I asked.

The waiter overheard and began bubbling like Roberto Benigni, saying, “You were in Italy? What wonderful things did you get to see?”

Allred, all business, had done no sightseeing on her trip.

“Do you know about Baby Santina?” she asked.

I pleaded ignorance, whereupon she spent the next couple of hours filling me in on the bizarre case of Toni Dykstra and Carlo Ventre, a couple who once lived together in an apartment in Downey and in November 1995 became parents of Santina Ventre, a baby girl.

Three years later, after Ventre took the little girl to Italy without the mother’s permission, Dykstra flew there, trying to get her back.

Allred began traveling to Rome after that, because the mother never made it home.

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A young Cuban boy is currently caught in a custody tug of war over whether he should be returned to Havana to his natural father or remain in America, where his mother was bringing him when she drowned on the voyage.

Certain parallels exist in the Baby Santina case. Except in this instance, the mother died from injuries after what the father described as a violent struggle that she instigated. He has claimed self-defense.

A crowd was waiting for Carlo Ventre when he got off a plane Sunday morning at the Tom Bradley International terminal of LAX.

Teri Dykstra was there, finally getting her first look at Ventre since the death 17 months ago of her identical twin.

“You killed my sister!” she shrieked as soon as he appeared. “You killed my sister!”

Detecting a sneer on Ventre’s face, James Dykstra, husband of Teri, had to be restrained from confronting him. At one time, before Ventre came along, James and his brother Alex were married to the twins Teri and Toni.

April Brooks, an FBI agent, was also waiting for Al Italia Flight 622. She placed Ventre under arrest on a charge of international felony parental kidnapping.

Ventre was not extradited here. He came on his own, presumably to attend a new custody hearing for 4-year-old Santina scheduled for Thursday.

It is a journey he might not have needed to make, inasmuch as only attorneys will be heard from at this hearing.

First comes a bail hearing today on the kidnapping rap. Ventre has twice been denied custody of Santina, once by a California judge and later by an Italian tribunal.

A few days after finding a job as a paralegal, Toni Dykstra scraped together her meager life savings, borrowed the rest and bought a ticket to Italy in July 1998 to get back her daughter. Her fear of Ventre’s wrath was such that she took refuge in a Catholic convent to keep out of sight.

A court in Rome ordered the child be returned to her. Santina was ill with pleurisy, though, so a flight home had to be delayed.

Toni Dykstra was then killed by a blow to the head in the home of Carlo Ventre, who told police she attacked him with an ax.

He has not been prosecuted. Allred received a letter from Italian authorities on Tuesday, insisting that an investigation is continuing . . . nearly a year and a half after Dykstra’s death.

“It took us five months just to get the body released,” Allred recalls.

To retrieve little Santina--who was placed in foster care--Allred flew repeatedly to Italy, paying her own way. She labored in hotel lobbies until 2 and 3 a.m., meeting with foreign ministers and drafting briefs with Italian attorneys.

Finally, on Nov. 13, a small girl speaking more Italian than English flew to Los Angeles and her relatives here. At one side was FBI Agent Brooks and at the other was Allred, who on the way home taught Santina the words and tune to “California, Here I Come.”

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Ever since I first heard about the Baby Santina case, I’ve been baffled by it. What do you do with a father of a child when the mother has died under such mysterious circumstances?

Allred says she was once told by an Italian official investigating Ventre: “It’s his word against hers . . . and she’s dead.”

Santina, meantime, is a baby no more. She is 4 and living in California with her grandparents, far from the sort of sights in Italy no girl should ever have to see.

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Mike Downey’s column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Write to him at Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles 90053. E-mail: mike.downey@latimes.com