All They Want for Christmas Is Their Daughter Back

I get the chills, no matter how warm it is, when I hear about bad things that happen to families at Christmas.

It shouldn’t matter whether the month is December or the middle of May because, where the parents of children are concerned, there are 365 days a year that can scare the living daylights out of you.

This time of year in particular, though, when families are feeling cheerful, arranging carefully wrapped gifts to be torn open Saturday by eager kids, I can’t imagine how much more horrible it must feel to be having a family crisis.

Maybe it makes me a little crazier than usual this Christmas, now that I’m married and have stepchildren for the first time. All I care about is keeping the youngest one safe and being kept informed periodically by the older ones that they are safe.

So when I was speaking to Jane Kraft from Mission Viejo about what kind of Christmas her family is having, I could feel those familiar chills up my spine.

“I can’t even turn on a radio,” she said. “I start to cry every time I hear a Christmas carol.”

*

Death didn’t come to this family’s door; it isn’t that.

Every family deals with death at some point; there is an inevitability about loss of life that makes it almost tolerable at times, looked upon as fate taking a hand or as the Lord working in mysterious ways.

What’s happening with the Kraft family is one of those things a parent can’t see coming, and can’t be sure how to handle.

Jane and Bill Kraft thought they were doing what was necessary when their 14-year-old daughter didn’t come home.

They told the police about it.

And then they waited.

It’s been nine days now and Chelsey Kraft is still missing from their lives. She hasn’t come home and she hasn’t called.

She apparently stopped attending classes at Mission Viejo High School. A truant officer wouldn’t know for sure until after Christmas break.

The last time Jane spoke to her daughter, she drove her to school. That was a few hours after catching her sneaking back into their house at 4:30 in the morning.

Jane wishes now that she had driven Chelsey directly to a nearby drug rehab center. She doesn’t know for sure that her daughter is using drugs. She just doesn’t know what else to think.

Why a family must feel so helpless “when an underage child runs away,” is what frustrates Jane most. She doesn’t understand why a missing 14-year-old isn’t more of a priority for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department authorities the Krafts have beseeched to return their daughter where she belongs.

See, these parents believe that they have a good idea where their daughter is. She is not a runaway whose face needs to be displayed on the side of a milk carton.

They believe that their 14-year-old has taken up company on a permanent basis with a boy of 19, who lives in the nearby Laguna area in either his own apartment or a friend’s.

But according to Jane Kraft, the police say “their hands are tied, or that there’s nothing they can do unless [Chelsey] commits a crime or is brought to a hospital or has a foot with a toe tag on it.”

She and her husband have provided police with the boy’s first name, phone number and addresses of two residential complexes where he is believed to have lived. The parents have gone there themselves in vain, not knowing the apartment number and unable to obtain that information.

She says the reply from law enforcement is that it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

“What do we have to do,” she asks, exasperated, “bring this guy to them on a platter?”

Her daughter disappeared once before, on Oct. 28, not coming home from school. Next morning, the Krafts contacted police.

Chelsey eventually returned on her own. But when she disappeared this time, Jane Kraft says the police response was: “Oh, yes, our records still show her as missing.”

Kraft can appreciate how busy the police must be, but where else is a parent supposed to turn when a 14-year-old daughter suddenly decides she doesn’t live with you anymore?

*

For now, about all Jane and Bill Kraft can think of is to hire a private detective. They sure are easy to find on television, but where do you look for one you can trust in real life . . . the Yellow Pages?

Meantime, it’s nearly Christmas.

Who knows, maybe somewhere in Orange County there is someone with a good heart and a kid of his or her own who can hand-deliver a family its daughter for the holidays.

No gift could ever mean more.

*

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.