An 18-year-old in Ohio finds out he was classified as a missing person from Alabama 13 years ago after he tried to apply for college. CNN's Jean Casarez reports.
I don't understand how it's possible for the father to kidnap the son. Were the parents not in contact during the kidnapping? It bugs me when these news stories have so many unanswered questions.
Divorce SUCKS for kids. Look up the statistics. Children of divorce have a higher rate of every single problem you can name. If Merkans are unable to have a stable relationship, then they should not have kids in the first damn place. Stop being selfish jerks, people!
@@johannah6906 exactly if the he is filed as a missing person and he goes to school ever day with his real name and it shows him as a missing person one quick in n the database would probably show what school he went to would not take that long to find him what did they do just forget about him like he literally walks out every day in plain site and is not hiding his identity it makes no sense to mee
+Sunny Is King Neither do I, but there a few different factors for 16-year olds to fill out college applications and go to college early. I feel like part of it may depend on when there birthday is....but try to factor in if they had gone to pre-school or not. There are toddlers/kids who do go to preschool while others don't and sometimes some parents choose to enroll their children in kindergarten at a young age depending on if the child has all the necessary requirements to be enrolled in kindergarten. Most kids are usually enrolled in kindergarten by the time they're 5. But there are other kids who are enrolled in kindergarten at ages 3 and 4 years old. For the kids who are 5 in kindergarten and as some get older; there are those kids who are really smart who are capable of skipping a grade and advancing to a higher grade at a younger age. But the youngest that I know of at my college at least are 17 years old.
Way back in the mid 50's my Dad was in Georgia in the Army when he met & married his first wife. They went back to West Virginia when he was finished. He became a Union Electrician & worked hard every day taking care of his wife & 2 kids. His mother tried to tell him that she didn't take good care of the kids because she was always at the bar drinking & cheating with countless men.... But he didn't believe her. He just thought that she didn't know how to be a proper mother & just needed time. One day he was laid off & went home early but no one was home. His mother had the kids again & he found her drunk at the bar letting some guy hang all over her. So he ended it & filed for divorce. She took the kids & ran back to Georgia & was in hiding. Her Uncle finally called my dad several years later & told him where they were & what was going on.... She was still neglecting the kids, was an alcoholic & shacking up with one guy after another. Well he went down there with his brother & checked out the situation. It was pretty bad indeed. So he got my oldest brother & sister I the car & hightailed it back up North with his children. He moved 30 miles across the state line from my grandparents and purchased a farm. He hired my Mom as a live-in Nanny & maid to take care of the kids & the home so he could go back to work as a Union Electrician. Well they ended up falling in love, getting married, and had 6 more children. The custody laws were different back then & his first wife didn't look very hard at all as no names were ever changed & he continued to attend family dinners at my grandparents house every Sunday. She never did give up drinking, she got remarried, and she had 4 more kids before she found them. By then they were 14 & 12 years old so the Judge talked to them both and let them decide where they wanted to live... Stay with our dad or go back to their alcoholic mother? Both chose to stay with our loving & adoring father and their new mother. Our parents were married for 50 years when we lost our dad a few years ago. My sister gave the most loving and heartbreaking eulogy for Dad.... She said that all those years ago, when he came to get them in Georgia, he was saving their lives. And because he loved them enough to do that, he had actually saved them from an unimaginable life with her to give them the wonderful life we all shared together.
@@grandma3442 that's great you had a great father to look after you and is who you are today as well from his love and selflessness. In the past the fathers use to get custody and it seems the children were better for it no doubt as what stats truly show as well. Imagine a broken and bitter woman who keeps the children because of the social aspect and attention she receives as well the help she can get because she has children and imagine any random man who's children they're not while the pool she chooses from isn't that great of quality being an alcoholic or whatever she chose in her squander what she can get. It is scary because her maim objective is more than likely to "survive" rather than putting the children's best interests first. I can just see this with many women who use the children for whatever gain it gives them instead of truly loving and providing for them. There are some decent single mothers put there but my sentiment is most the time they can't be that great if she left the father of her children and if he was so bad then it was a bad choice on her part so it's basically the same scenario. If he died then obviously it's a different situation but I think too many women put their children in a really bad situation today because not too many random men will care about children that are not their's especially the decent ones and they do not want to be put through the hell the former man went through either. Sometimes it works but it's rare which doesn't seem too good with the divorce stats we have today with women initiating around or over 80% of them. Glad to hear you had a great father.
Julian: *goes back to school* His friends: "Hey Julian, what's up?" Julian: "I just found out I've been a missing person for 13 years and my father actually kidnapped me from my mom when I was 5." His friends: "..." Julian: "So... what about you guys?"
Imagine how insane this is for him. Like your dad, literally the only parent you've ever known, gets arrested for kidnapping you 18 years ago. I can't imagine what he must be going through. His life would never ever be the same
@@jasminkrieger8228 But it is not a crime. He wasn't reported as missing. His father had him, and there was no court order so he wasn't in violation. It's like this Gabby Pertito story going around now. No body found, and the one body that HAS been found, has not been ID'd as Gabby! Two days with the FBI and still not named? Hmmmm. Her BF not named as a suspect either. Too much social media, not enough people reading the facts.
@@jasminkrieger8228 his dad raised him in a world of betrayal and lies! He kept him from his mother and her family for almost the entirety of his childhood. He’ll likely have to deal with that psychological trauma for years to come. That does not equate to having raised him well.
BELLA He might have moved and the mother may not have known where he moved to. Also he had a different social security number so the dad obviously tried to hide his son and make him harder to find.
Wait a minute. This man kidnapped HIS OWN son, and raised him well. And now he is getting jail time for that? I know that he was taken from his mother, but please. There must have been some logical reason.
this is a bit ridiculous,HE STOLE..HIS OWN KID like no well the mother couldnt see him,but if the kid choses that he still dont want to then easy. as if there is no reason randomly taken i can see why the charges,but if she was alcoholic or smh i get why take the kid
Yes, the father had faked cancer and forged documents to the boys mother in the past and when she found out and tried to end things he threatened that if she breaks up with him he will take their kid. Looks like an abusive relationship, the father was manipulative.
About 25 years ago a friend of my son was kicked out by his mother when he was 16. I told him he could stay with us, since he was a nice kid. One day he told me he thought his mother had kidnapped him when he was 8 from his dad who had custody. I decided to try to find his dad since he had no idea where he father was. It took me about 6 months to locate the father in Florida, we lived in Minnesota. His father was beyond happy to find out where his son was after so many years, he was still listed in the database of missing children. He sent him a plane ticket. The last time I heard from them, the kid, now an adult had joined the fire department where his dad worked and was a fireman also. That woman had made the poor kid's life miserable during the 8 years she had him.
fucking hell this is why ppl shouldnt decide who gets the kids based on gender alone (and this is coming from a women) lol... ive seen horrible men be horrible fathers but ive also witnessed women selling their own kids for money via sex... no one is perfect sooner we realize this the better...
I read that the father was sentenced to 4 years in prison back in 2016. The son said in court that he loves his father and wants him still to be a part of his life. He also said that he does not want his father to go to jail.
The Rex life did you forget about the poor mother in this? That would be a living hell. For thirteen years. Plus the kid couldn't see his mom either. For thirteen years.
@@valeriebanks8877 i read a comment that he said he love his father and doesnt want him to go to jail, so he must have a pretty good life with his dad. The devastated one is the mom i think, imagine thinking your child is dead more than a decade ago, and found out he's still alive. She gonna be grateful, but would also probably thinking why couldnt she be there during the time when his son growing up... complicated
I had a moment like this when applying for a new passport. The birth register databases had just been centralised and the clerk insisted there was noone born with my name on the birth date specified on my old passport. He exchanged a glance with his colleague who suggested I have a talk with my parents about this... I finally asked them to try my mother`s maiden name. I got my father`s surname when they married a few months later. My story is boring, thanks for reading though ;-)
What else should the authorities have done? When they have no leads, they have no leads. And this boy was found because the authorities set up a database like the one that flagged that he was a missing person.
Wait a minute...Only the mother got to make a statement and no statement from the kid was given. Dude seemed to be raised well and happy so...methinks his father was trying to get him away from a shitty mother perhaps...If that's the case, it's a scary thought.
@@mcaskey358 Women are awarded primary custody 90% of the time in cases where they are fighting for custody. The father probably knew he was most likely gonna lose his son to the shitty mother, so he took it into his own hands. A mother in another comment did the exact same thing, except the father was good and the mother took the kid to hurt the father, then kicked the kid out when she didn't want him anymore
@@darkwowplayer here's a related vid ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-5Ua2ygukYb4.html. tldw; the son doesn't want his father to be jailed
I think this is a non-story. Shifty parents screwed with the paperwork and did some name changing for whatever reason. He was still raised by a parent and seemingly raised well.
@@johnbowman1076 being raised by a parent by being stolen from another is no way to raise a child. If a woman stole a child from his father, it would be a problem as well. It's not alright.
He fled the state and got a new identity. It was out of their jurisdiction already... in many cases, a person has to be missing for at least 24 hours to file a report (which is stupid, in my opinion) and that gives someone enough time to move out of state if they had everything planned already.
The boy shouldn't be put in that position, especially when he won't understand the impact of his fathers crime on both himself and his mother for decades to come. Father committed a crime and belongs in prison.
"This... 16 year old." Hmm missing for 13 years... since the age of 5... "This... 16 year old.." Wow 16 year old applying for college. Maybe he was 18 idk. Idk if she stupid or if I'm stupid but someone stupid
There has to be more to this story because the boy was well raised by his father. Why do people think its all right to keep the son from his father? Looks like the father did a very good job in raising his son well.
@@justadutchman5169 I wasn’t commenting on the outcome of the criminal and custodial lines of inquiry. Just that the father had a very unfortunate mug shot.
This is so sad. The young man was raised to believe one thing, when something else was actually true. I don't have the back story, but it sounds like the father took very good care of him.
Tessa McArthur Ok, it's absolutely kidnapping if the dad either doesn't have custody of the child and takes them away, or they both have custody and he takes the child away.
+Erica Scribner you see so many court cases where the father gets zero custody despite them being fully capable of raising them well because of the society we live him. Yes he 'kidnapped' him but he probably deserved to have joint-custody. The father should face punishment but not time behind bars
No. I want to know what the circumstances were that led to him having to steal his son away from the mother. But from what we know, not kudos to him. His own son exposed the story after finding out what he did.
@@budomk9299 The father probably saw the mother was a bad influence on the kid, so what he did was great, for his son who is now in college...about the mother? Who cares!
Yes, if I was the mother, as distraught as I’d be, I’d be glad my son at the very least lived a good, happy life after thinking he’d been dead for 13 years. If I’d been any other kidnapper, the boy would’ve been long decomposing by now.
People can be so lame. Mom AND Dad could have done the same or better. The bond between mother and child is irreplaceable, this boy was probably told that his mother was dead or something. Imagine the pain he had to overcome; now imagine it again as he realizes she was there all that time. Now imagine his mental state now trying to graduate and go to college.
This kid's like: Just chillin. Doin well in school, hangin with some friends, trying to write a college application, and like: "WOOP. I'M A MISSING PERSON. DATS NICE. REAL NICE."
He could have joined the military, in which case it would have been noticed too. Or, applied for almost any government job. Or, applied for any job requiring a background check. Or, attempted to have gotten bonded for some purpose. Or, if he'd have been arrested. Heck, these days, he could well have ended up deported!
+Susan Stanko It sounded like there never was a custody order in place and they never were married. I wonder why though she wouldn't get a custody order put in place though. husker hammer may be right because she may have known with a record or drug use she wouldn't get custody in any court. I think what sucks is the kid got stuck between to parents who didn't get along but on the positive side he was raised a good kid and nobody can take that from him in the end.
+husker hammer The Father did save him who was likely a year behind headed very badly being kept back in K. since he was 5 and the Father decided he had to do something she is probley a drug addict and had he not taken the kid the boy would have stayed with his disfuctional Mom likely a drug addict and he would have become one himself growing up thier. so he risked Prison to save his son from a very unfit Mom.
I know this young man went through a lot when he discovered all of this idenity but it would be nice to get an update on this situation. How he is doing? his relationship w/ his mom? Is his dad still in jail? he must be done or almost done w/ college by now.
Erica Lin the person stays on the list until they find them or find their remains. There are children who have been missing since the 60s and 70s who are still on the list
Erica Lin No because that 5 yr old boy was never found. Little did they know his name was changed & moved. So even they saw him they didn't know it was that 5 yr old who was reported missing in so and so state
wongc32 Obviously she knew it was the dad these things take time whether we like it or not. It’s like picking a fucking needle out of a hay stack. Not everyone is looking for him, probably just a small team and a bunch of wanted/ missing posters.
When I was in elementary school I was good friend with a boy named Gary. He lived a block away. One day, it hit the news that a missing boy had been found. When they showed it was Gary, it was shocking, even for me, a fourth grader. His father had kidnapped and brought him here to the Boston area. I never saw Gary again. I hope he's doing well. He was a nice kid .
Makes you wonder why the father ran off with the child in the first place? Going as far as hiding the child's identity...if this would have been a woman the news would have been painting another picture. Weird. Very weird.
Yeah!!! You probably right I don't know why society today have no consideration or respect for fatherhood Or manhood. this is really tragic. Being a man it's like a plague today. You are not allow to talk back, defend yourself, or have your own opinion. You have to follow whatever your wife says or any lady. You Just need to be a sheep. This is really tragic for our society, It really pains me to see that we are marginalizing one fringe of a society. Everything a man does is bad that's the premise on almost everything, this is so sad. Just a reminder 90% of all the discovery that we have today in the world have been made by man we are not perfect far from it, but at least we are doing the best we can. Please stop criminalizing manhood we are not evil.
passerau This is probably one of the most stupid comments I’ve ever seen in my life! 😂 Also if it weren’t for women, you would even be able to make this comment because a woman made WiFi. And ur number is not correct, but the only reason men have discovered more is because the men never gave women a chance. You can express ur feeling women don’t care if u do it’s the men who think they can’t so that’s YOUR problem lmao. Also, you don’t have to follow what any woman says if u don’t want to. And no woman has to follow what any man says. I think you are officially the stupidest person I have ever met.
True considering the fact that a mother carries her baby for 9 full months and grows that connection with her child that the father could never have Bc the child wasn’t IN Them so yea ofc it would have been different
thepersonwhohasnovideos no he was 18, they made a mistake and Julian’s original post on reddit confirmed it www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/3mimwo/multiple_states_when_i_was_a_child_my_father/
Axxel Rose Um he illegally kidnapped his own child, used a false ID, and hid him from his mother for years all while lying to him...yes parent of the year. And just because the kid has good grades and is going to college doesn’t mean the dad raised him well and even if he did raise him well that doesn’t give him the “get out of jail free card because the kid turned out okay”
You dont have to be a rude with the dad just because you have a resentment at you own dad Lucy. Look what happened to you. You forgave too late that your own dad die without you knowing only to find out after 7 years.....................................
Genesis Coleman yes it does. It means you're able to work hard, maintain a job, take responsibility, own up for your own mistakes, and better yourself in all aspects. All those things make a good scholar, so yes, it does mean you turned out ok. And all those things you learn from a father.
The mother must be stupid to claim a missing person and not suspect the father. You can't kidnap your own kid. It's not like she had full custody anyway. The kid was better off with the father from the looks of it.
poor kid. To not only discover he and his dad aren't who he thought they were, but his dad has now been arrested and he has to possibly go back to live with a family he doesn't know. That has to be traumatic.
Yet they do say that the father did a good job raising him. And he did have the freedom to go to school. He didn't seem like he got abused by his father either. He looked just fine on the photo.
Laura Aquina yes but do we know the reason as to *why* he was taken? We don’t know. The father really could be a nice genuine guy, but laws are laws. And while he could’ve gotten away without any jail time/charges, that is the judges last decision. Not ours.
Maralah Quin I... I’m so tired and I understand your point but tbh I just woke up and the only response I can think of rn is ‘okay boomer’ and I’m not sure how to feel about that
Did anyone ever ask what circumstances would drive a father to remove a child from his mother's care, the courts be damned? If you note how well the boy was cared for; drug use, abuse, mental issues and etc are all possibilities, js.
Me personally? No, I don't think I would. But I'm young and have no kids and as such I'm only guessing how I'd feel in a situation where the courts tell me I'm not allowed to see my own child. But not everyone is going to have the same reaction as me. Custody needs to be 50/50 in EVERY case unless a legitimate reason is provided as to why it should not be.
e13kid I don't see what your beef with custody laws are? And besides, 50/50 isn't always going to be the best solution for a multitude of reasons (travel time, parenting relationships, etc:) on top of that, I imagine that the child wouldn't be able to create a very meaningful relationship if he's switching back and forth with both parents for an equal amount of time.
Of course it isn't, but it should be the starting point. After that parents can devise their own time they find better, as long as BOTH parents agree to it. But you revealed your own bigotry against fathers in your comment. " I imagine that the child wouldn't be able to create a very meaningful relationship if he's switching back and forth with both parents for an equal amount of time." So you fully admit that you don't care that children all across America are not able to build a very meaningful relationship with their fathers right now, since right now they have even less than an equal amount of time with their children. So of course you don't see my beef with custody laws, you don't care about children having a good relationship with their father. And we're already seeing the results of multiple generations of children raised without fathers in the black community, is it everything you hoped for?
I wish my daughters father would see his daughter. He's a deadbeat piece of shit. Let him try to take my daughter I'd kill someone. Besides she's mine and he's got nothing on me. This is so sad though :/
He disappeared with the kid and the mother didn't know they didn't agree to this he left the state and changed their names got fake ssn to stay hidden . how is this not kidnapping really how can you possibly think this isn't kidnapping if you have a child with someone and they did this to you took your kid and ran to a different state and change names and ss numbers you would be cool with that that's ok with you ?
I don’t think nice people would kidnap kids. But kidnapping is a crime, it doesn’t matter if the dad was a nice guy, kidnapping is not nice and it’s a crime. He should’ve thought of the consequences first.
The dad faked cancer to the mother and when she said she wasn't happy in the relationship said if she ended it he would 'take the kid'. He sounds awful, I feel even worse for the boy. He may have been well fed and encouraged at school but what kind of morals did his father have?
If you're only just now commenting on this video, over a year since it was uploaded and all this went down... I'm gonna hazard a guess and say you're not the kid in the video.
It's an age-progressed photo from his most recent missing poster, created by using software to age a photo from around the time he was reported missing. Well either that or he happens to look exactly identical to the age-progressed photo. You can see the poster in this article about him www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3306307/Mother-searching-missing-son-13-years-snatched-father-overjoyed-make-contact-time.html
I don't know why they say 'courage'. I would think anyone who found out that their name doesn't match up would naturally go looking into it and find out. It's a natural instinct to find answers, not courage.
It's courageous because you may just brush it off and not dig into the rabbit hole. Do you think he didn't ask dad what was going? Another teen may have tried to protect their parent too. What he did landed what sounds like a good dad in jail for a very long time. Not something people would do lightly.
Someone I know took 17 years to look deeper into her own kidnapping because she didn’t want her dad to go to jail. She waited until he passed away. She would have waited even longer. It is courage. It is bravery. Many people are terrified of finding out that their lives were a lie. This boy was strong enough to handle the outcome. Not everyone is that strong.
Haven't you ever discovered something and known that it was probably important, but not investigated it further because you were afraid of what you might find? Knowing for a fact that your dad kidnapped you isn't the same as suspecting it.
