Moms of the Missing, page 8
He knew that Susan’s use of cocaine and methamphetamine had made her paranoid, and he says Susan’s family preyed on her fear when they told her that he was going to take the children away from her as a result of the drug abuse and stolen money.
“They believed I stole their daughter ten years earlier—and now they would steal her back. It was the perfect revenge for them,” Louis says.
Therefore Louis is sure that Susan’s parents, together with other family members, planned the abduction. He is certain, too, that when she left the house in Riverside her parents helped her onto a plane, thereby escaping the authorities in California. And today Louis accuses law enforcement of never having investigated her family’s part in the kidnapping. Therefore Louis had filed civil lawsuits against the family for custodial interference. Due to jurisdictional issues, Louis has had to file lawsuits in California, Pennsylvania, and Oklahoma. And he had to hire lawyers in each state. The fight was uneven.
“Susan comes from a very wealthy family with a lot of oil money, so we were up against different teams of lawyers. They covered us in paperwork and I could not pay the bills,” Louis says.
LOVE OUTWEIGHS ANGER
During the lawsuits, family members testified that they had helped Susan leave California and that they later provided her with money while she was on the run with the children. Louis asked the district attorney of Orange County, California, why he did not press charges against the family for aiding Susan in the kidnapping, and he says that in 1988 he received a letter in response to his question. The letter claimed that it was not the policy of law enforcement to prosecute family members who render “minor” assistance to a kidnapper.
“I still have that letter among the more than two thousand pounds of documents that I keep in my apartment about the case,” Louis says.
Louis further claims that Susan’s family kept orchestrating fraudulent stories about him. One story said he was part of the Italian Mafia, and that he had put a contract on Susan’s head. Therefore she was now hiding with the children.
“And they said that I had handcuffed her and kept her locked up in the garage,” Louis says.
He thinks it’s suspicious that Susan’s family has never hired private investigators to search for their grandchildren. He claims they never had the desire to because they have all along known where the children are, and that they have probably seen them occasionally.
“I am sure they know where they have been all this time,” Louis says, even though he admits that he still bears a grudge against Susan’s family, and that at times he has speculated about what he would like to do to them.
“But how would it serve my children if I went and killed her relatives? Then my kids would have two criminal parents. Once I had the guns and the anger to do so, but my love for my children outweighs the anger no matter what they did to my children. But it takes energy and sheer will to suppress the anger I have inside me. Still, the love for my children is always the blanket on the flame. But her family should thank God that I never stop loving my kids and fall into despair,” Louis confesses.
Despite the harm Susan has caused, Louis refuses to say he hates her. Instead he feels sorry for her—and also blames himself for what happened.
“I am very sad that I could not help Susan the way she helped me when I was the coke addict. She saved me, and I would have liked to have saved her. Despite the fact I could always spot a drug user no matter where I was in the world, I could not when there was a drug user living in my house. I blame myself for not having helped her, because I truly loved her,” Louis says.
Therefore, in the beginning, he also had difficulties acknowledging that the love of his life had abducted his children.
“For six months after [they had been taken] I still wore my wedding ring. One day my boss said: ‘Take it off or I will fire you.’ He was more angry at her than I was,” Louis says.
In the wake of his split from Susan, Louis has met other women, but the relationships always come to a premature end. The women always tell him that they can feel he is still in love with Susan.
“And I always reply to them by asking: How do you stop loving a person that has saved your life and that gave you babies? I still love that person, but I also hate the Frankenstein she turned into when she took my babies,” Louis says.
When asked how he would react if he were ever to see Susan again, his reaction comes promptly.
“I would probably just break down and cry and ask her why? Why did she not come asking me for help back then?” Louis says.
He will, however, forever have to live with the devastation Susan’s actions have had on his body, mind, and soul. When Susan kidnapped the kids, Louis was a young man who could bench 400 pounds. Today he is an old man who can barely carry himself. Because when you live with grief for decades you develop other diseases. Today, Louis suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). He has also been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and he suffers from a heart condition. These are a few of the many physical ailments that have developed from the stress of the kidnapping. As Louis says:
“Mental and emotional pain breaks the body and mind down in every possible way.”
And his pain begins as soon as he opens his eyes every day. The first thing he does in the morning is vomit—a physical reaction to the question of how he is going to get through another day. These daily episodes are intense and exhausting.
“My life is like a blender full of all sorts of emotions. The only [sure] thing is that my emotions are stirring around all the time. It is just too much to handle, and I have broken down several times. I could not take it anymore around Christmastime in 2013. I was in a very bad state of mind, and I was hospitalised. For an entire year I was on mental disability,” Louis acknowledges.
This was not the first time Louis broke down. He has often contemplated suicide because, according to Louis, the pain can reach a level where he just wants to be without the hurt.
“I have had the gun in my mouth,” he says.
Another night he took the gun and put three rounds in the chamber, which could hold six bullets. It was fifty-fifty whether Louis was going to survive.
“When I pulled the trigger it fell on an empty chamber. God wanted me to live. He wanted me here, searching for my children, and since that day I have maintained hope that I am going to find them, even though I still at times feel like killing myself. But you can say that the love for my children is stronger than my desire to relieve myself of the pain I feel,” Louis says.
LIFE IN THE GHETTO
Today, Louis still fights to get his children back, and he says his case is no longer an abduction case, but a murder case.
“When they stole my children, they killed everything inside of me. I am a walking dead man,” Louis explains.
He says he has tried everything possible to get his children back; often, the efforts have brought new hope. In the summer of 2017, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the advertising company Clear Channel put up 1,000 electronic billboards across America. For four weeks the billboards lit up the sky…and Louis’ hopes that they would help identify where his children were. But as had often happened before, his hopes were extinguished.
“I never have closure. I have been trapped in this state of mind for thirty years without knowing what happened to my children. Today, I don’t know if they are safe, if they are parents, or even if they are dead. Not knowing is an indescribable pain that I live with daily,” Louis says.
His search has also brought impoverishment. Louis has spent over a million dollars on private investigators, lawyers, and other means of trying to get his children back. A few years back his financial condition forced Louis to live in the slums, where he had a small apartment with only a mattress on the floor, as he could not afford any other furniture.
“The cockroaches were crawling all over me, and I woke up in the middle of the night with rats biting my toes. The place was so infested that I could not have food in the apartment, because if I did it would right away be flooded with cockroaches and rats,” Louis says.
Living in the ghetto posed a health risk in other ways. Five times, police had to come and save Louis as he was assaulted by other neighbours struggling to get through life by robbing other people. Louis describes the ordeal he went through as six months in hell. With the help of friends he eventually made it out of the ghetto. But he still lives in poverty.
“I still spend all my money on finding my kids. Therefore I have one mug and one plate. I have nothing, but no one knows because no one comes to my home because it is a home of sadness and a home of isolation. The only time I see people is when I go to work,” Louis says.
After leaving the ghetto he continued his job as a senior law clerk. Despite going to law school he never got his bar licence as a lawyer because he could not afford it after Susan left with the children.
“I often walk around with wet socks from rain, because my shoes are full of holes, but I cannot afford new shoes. When I go to work my pants are also full of holes—at a prestigious law firm! But my bosses know what happened, and they are kind enough to hold on to me,” Louis says.
And by Louis’ own admission the firm can expect him to be there for a long time, if they will let him. Louis says he is sixty-five years old, and that he will never be able to retire, due to his financial situation.
“Last time I checked I had thirty-three cents in my saving accounts. So I will die at my desk or put a bullet to my head if I do not find my children and can no longer care for myself,” Louis admits.
Despite the warnings of his premature death, Louis is trying to maintain hope. He just wants to see his children one more time before he dies.
“I gotta see them, hear their voices, and just hold them. I want to see who they have become, and to make sure they are all right. Not knowing if I will see them before I die is living in terror. The same is not knowing if they have died,” Louis says.
He believes that immediately after the kidnapping Susan took the children to a gravesite and told them their father was dead so they would not search for him as they got older, or she would have painted their father to be the worst monster of all time so they would not have any desire to look him up. Parental alienation syndrome is often a parental kidnapper’s most effective weapon.
“But none of [that] is true. I am a loving father that miss[es] my kids every day, and I will do anything for them,” Louis avows.
Louis also says that today he is not only fighting for his own kids but all American children who are in danger of being abducted. He does that by raising positive awareness of his case. And he has made landmark Supreme Court case law and written legislation for the state of Oklahoma.
“People have told me they contemplated kidnapping their children, but after hearing my story they have realised that is not the way [to go] about things. No parents should lose a child,” Louis says, adding that he believes he has been given a mission that he can fulfill only if he shows the world who Louis Zaharias is, for good and for ill.
“I cannot buy people’s loyalty, and if I am caught in just one lie I lose everything. Therefore I have told all about my flaws and the bad person I was. My honesty is all I have, though letting out all the skeletons [in] the closets has done a lot of damage to me and my career,” Louis says.
HAPPY AND PROUD
After the abduction Louis moved to Arizona, where he worked as a kindergarten teacher for seven years. Later he also worked as a paralegal for the Maricopa County District Attorney’s office. Given Louis’ background as a child advocate and a kindergarten teacher, the DA’s office assigned him to the Child Abuse Unit for two years before he decided to move back to California. Working with the district attorney was shocking for Louis in many ways.
“District attorney’s offices are pretty much the same everywhere. And I found out that district attorneys do not prosecute crimes because someone broke the law. They only prosecute crimes based on politics, trends, and when they know they will get a good conviction rate. I have lost a lot of faith in our justice system, and I also want to tell people about the flaws within it,” Louis says.
Though he feels that life has been unfair to him he tries to find strength by telling himself there is a reason for his suffering.
“Sometimes God asks us to do hard things,” Louis says, “and perhaps he asked me to do good for millions of people. God has given me broad shoulders.”
By telling his story Louis hopes people realise not only the harsh toll parental abductions have on the other parent but, more importantly, how they harm their own children. According to Louis, the trauma inflicted on many abducted children will follow them forever.
“Some [parental kidnappers] dress up boys as girls to hide their identity,” Louis says, “and some of the children even become afraid of daylight, because they are only allowed out at night when no one will see them. Too many children have also been killed in high-speed chases when parents have stolen and taken off with them. So many children are suffering by their parent’s evil, and if I can save just one child by telling my story, I will be happy and proud.”
In the 1980s, after the U.S. Congress held hearings on the subject of parental kidnapping, they declared parental kidnappings to be one of the most heinous forms of child abuse any person can engage in.
5
INFANT ABDUCTIONS
The young black female identified herself as Latoya when she kindly offered to change April Williams’ diaper so her exhausted mother could rest. Minutes later “Latoya” ran off with the three-month-old baby. April’s abduction received wide attention because the abduction occurred at a Washington, DC, bus station only a few blocks from the White House, while April and her mother were in transit. More than three decades later, the case still remains unsolved.
April’s kidnapping received a lot of attention not only because it happened so close to the U.S. president’s residence, but also because infant abduction cases are very rare.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children registered only 325 cases of abducted infants in the United States that took place between 1965 and 2018.
An infant abduction is defined as a kidnapping of a child under six months of age. This type of abduction can take various forms, from a noncustodial parent abducting the infant to a stranger abducting a child from a hospital, a home, or a public place. A review of the 325 cases mentioned previously shows that:
140 infants were taken from health care facilities
138 infants were taken from their home
47 infants were abducted in locations other than health care facilities or their homes
16 infants still remain missing
Based on the information gleaned from these cases, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has tried to create a composite portrait of infant abductors. Usually, the centre says, the abductor is a female of childbearing age who appears to be pregnant. Often, she has lost a baby herself or is incapable of becoming pregnant, but she still desires to provide her companion with “his” baby. She usually lives in the community where the abduction takes place, and she visits local nursery and maternity units prior to the abduction. During her visits she asks detailed questions about the babies, procedures, and the maternity floor layout, so she can quickly escape once she has taken the baby. Other times, she pretends to be a health care staff member; often, she becomes friends with the true parents before abducting their child from the health care facility.
The profile of infant abductors who kidnap the child from their home is slightly different than the profile of other abductors. In these cases the abductor is more likely to be single, and she targets a mother she has met at a health care unit. When she carries out the abduction it has already been carefully planned, and she often brings a weapon or impersonates a health care staff member checking on the baby.
Donna Green met an infant abductor just hours after giving birth to her son Raymond. A few days later, the abductor showed up unannounced in her home.
An Empty Frame
Missing: Raymond Lamar Green
Date of Birth: 11/01/1978
Missing From: Atlanta, Georgia
Missing Since: 11/06/1978 (5 days old)
Classification: Endangered Missing
Interview: Donna Green, mother of Raymond
Donna holds a picture frame, but the votive portrait within the frame is not an actual photograph of her son. Instead it is an age-progression drawing, portraying what Raymond might look like today; the only picture Donna has of Raymond is in her mind.
“My son was only five days old when he was abducted. I never had the chance of taking his photo,” Donna says. “But I don’t need a photo to remember Raymond’s beautiful smile as he [lay] in my arms after he was born.”
Neither does she need a picture to remember the woman who took him. Donna met her son’s abductor a few hours after Raymond’s birth. When the proud mother went to watch her seven pound, eight ounce son through the nursery windows of Atlanta’s Grady Memorial Hospital, a woman was already there looking at the babies. The woman introduced herself as “Lisa” and pointed at a baby then said it was her niece. Lisa’s sister was tired after labour, Lisa told Donna, so Lisa had offered to nurse the baby while her sister regained her strength.
The two women quickly started talking, and Lisa asked which of the babies was Donna’s. The proud mother gladly answered. Because why not? Lisa was a young lady in her early twenties with smooth, light skin, warm eyes and a nice smile. The kind of person you would immediately trust, Donna says.
After admiring the babies for half an hour, Lisa suggested she accompany Donna to her room, so they could continue to talk.
