CALIFORNIA BRIEFING
A mother was sentenced Monday to six months in jail for abducting her 5-year-old son and eluding authorities and her former husband for 25 years.
Margie Laverne Mansell, 52, pleaded guilty to one felony count of child abduction, according to the Orange County district attorney’s office.
In May 1983, Mansell, of Mission Viejo, fled the state with her son. She had divorced the boy’s father but he had been granted visitation rights. Mansell moved from state to state -- Kansas and Tennessee among them -- taking refuge in churches and changing her and her son’s names several times to evade capture.
In May, an anonymous caller reported Mansell was living in Ware County, Ga., with her 30-year-old son under the name Christa Spiers. She was arrested later that month and extradited to Orange County.
-- Tony Barboza
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