Missing kids translate into 400 mysteries

Kim Smith

Sunday, Nov. 14, 1999 | 9:35 a.m.

Michelle Lee loved weekends. Weekends meant going to Sunset Park with daddy. Weekends meant feeding the ducks. As of today, Michelle has missed 346 weekends with her father.

Michelle was abducted Sept. 2, 1992, one month before her fifth birthday. She was kidnapped by her mother.

"It's no different than a stranger abduction," Larry Lee, Michelle's father, said. "I don't know where she is. I don't know how she is or if she's even alive. I don't know if I'll ever see her again."

While the disappearance of 7-year-old Karla Rodriguez has gained national attention in recent weeks, Las Vegas authorities say people need to remember there are thousands of other children nationwide who are missing right now who, for many reasons, are not getting the attention they deserve.

Karla was last seen on the evening of Oct. 20 while playing with neighborhood friends. Despite door-to-door visits, massive manhunts and interviews with family, friends and teachers, Metro Police have no leads.

Fortunately, cases such as Karla's are rare. Unfortunately, cases such as Michelle's are not.

Michelle is one of 400 Nevada children who are currently missing because a parent or other family member abducted them, police say.

According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, more than 6,000 children are reported missing in Nevada every year. Most of those children are runaways who come back home. Hundreds of other children are abducted by family members but are returned home safely within a matter of days.

Law enforcement agencies and child advocacy groups keep track of the missing children by dividing them into categories. There are the runaways, the children kidnapped by strangers and those kidnapped by family members. Then there are those who are kicked out of their homes -- the so-called throwaways.

Traditionally it has been the stranger abductions that get the lion's share of media attention, but those whose job it is to find the children know the missing kids in the other categories can be just as endangered.

Metro Police Lt. Brad Simpson said police are noticing an alarming trend nationwide. More and more parents are killing their children and then themselves rather than allowing their former spouse to take custody of their child.

While that hasn't happened in Las Vegas, there have been far too many parents who have kidnapped their children and then gone to extraordinary lengths to hide them, officials say.

Maria Emeterio, an investigator with the Nevada attorney general's office, said not only will kidnappers move frequently, but they'll also change their child's name, appearance and birth records. In some of the more bizarre cases, parents have forced their children to undergo cosmetic surgery or don the clothes of the opposite sex.

In one local case, a mother took her child to Idaho, refused to allow him to go to school and hid with him in a shack that lacked running water or electricity, Emeterio said.

Emeterio was involved in the Brandon Carsello case, which ended happily this summer after the boy had been missing for 11 years. Melody Carsello kidnapped her then-5-year-old son from his day-care center in Las Vegas on June 10, 1988. His father, Richard Carsello, had been awarded custody.

Richard Carsello spent more than $125,000 on the search for his son, hiring countless private investigators and flying around the world, all for naught.

Late last year the Oregon Missing Children Clearinghouse called Emeterio about an anonymous tip on the Carsello case. Melody Carsello was arrested by Scotland Yard in London on May 19 and Richard Carsello was reunited with his son on June 14, 11 years and four days after he was kidnapped.

Authorities have said Melody Carsello used at least two aliases and had lived at various times in the eastern United States, Canada, France and England.

Melody Carsello now faces trial on custody rights violations.

Grant D. Ashley, special agent in charge of the Las Vegas FBI office, said he has handled cases in which the children have been taken to South America and South Africa. Many countries either don't recognize United States' custodial rights laws or won't aid the United States with extradition.

In some cases, parents have asked him for advice on how to go about kidnapping their children back, Ashley said. Obviously, he has advised against doing so.

When investigators do catch up with the kidnappers they don't often find an altruistic parent, either, Emeterio said.

"A person who abducts a child is not in his right mind-set," Emeterio said. "I have never seen a case where a parent abducted a child because it was truly in the best interest of the child. They are usually doing it to take away something from the other person."

Unfortunately, there has also been at least one local case in which a child was taken from an abusive parent only to be sexually abused by the parent who did the kidnapping, Emeterio said. When the child was found, he ended up becoming a ward of the state.

Jill LeMasurier, executive director of Nevada Child Seekers, said she considers all family abductions to be child abuse.

"They rip these children away from their friends and family and a lot of times they tell them that the other parent is dead or a horrible person, which makes reunification extremely difficult," LeMasurier said. "It's a terrible, terrible situation to put a child in."

Lee is tortured by the thought that Michelle will hate him if they are ever reunited, but he is determined to continue his search.

The Lees separated when Michelle was 3 years old and the judge gave the couple joint custody. Mi Young took Michelle for a weekend visit and never returned.

Because no one knows where Michelle is now, she is one of 34 missing children, some of whom are now adults, currently featured on www.missingkids.com, a website maintained by Nevada Child Seekers, a nonprofit group dedicated to bringing missing children home.

The 34 were chosen from the 400 open cases because they are considered the most at-risk.

Of the 35 children featured, 17 are runaways, 11 were abducted by family members, five were abducted by strangers and two are missing for unknown reasons, LeMasurier said.

"A lot of people think the child is out there having a good time, but unfortunately we've had a number of our juveniles get into trouble out there, whether it's with prostitution, drugs or robbery," LeMasurier said. "The more times they run away, the more chances there are that they'll end up meeting the wrong people."

Michael Rainey is one example. The 14-year-old Las Vegan ran away from home in 1996 after a fight with his parents. In August authorities identified his remains. He had been shot to death, probably within two weeks of his disappearance. His murder is unsolved.

"We put so much effort and emotion and care into his case," LeMasurier said. "I felt like I knew Michael without even having met him and when I got the call, it really hit me."

While many runaway teens are staying with a different friend every night, some are doing whatever is necessary to survive, LeMasurier said.

"Most runaways come home within 72 hours, but you just don't know which ones are the ones who are going to get into trouble. You don't know which ones are going to end up living on the street or which ones are going to end up dead," LeMasurier said.

Over the last 15 years law enforcement agencies have started working more closely with child advocacy groups to find missing kids, LeMasurier said.

In the mid-1980s, the law that required police to wait 24 hours before taking missing children cases was done away with and the FBI started getting involved in cases before they crossed state lines. The FBI also started obtaining "unlawful flight to avoid prosecution" warrants to aid state agencies in getting back those parents who crossed state lines with their abducted children.

Nevada Child Seekers was also formed in 1984. The nonprofit organization provides crisis counseling for parents, helps law enforcement follow up on leads and networks with the media and missing children's organizations across the country. It also formed a 300-member search group.

In 1991 Nevada's legislators created the Nevada Missing Children Clearinghouse with the attorney general's office. It acts as a central registry for missing children and as an information resource center. Specially trained attorneys from the attorney general's office also took over the prosecution of those who violate custody rights.

Law enforcement officers once didn't want to take family abduction and runaway reports because they involved so many emotions, Emeterio said. That has changed.

"We've given them real case histories and now it's not just another report, now they know that this is Larry Lee's daughter we're talking about and we've got to keep going forward," Emeterio said.

The public is also beginning to realize that yes, a parent can be prosecuted for "stealing" his or her own child, Emeterio said. In the last three years, senior deputy attorney general Jan Cohen has successfully prosecuted 30 such cases.

The maximum penalty for violating custodial rights is four years in prison and a $5,000 fine.

Lee said he doesn't care if Mi Young is prosecuted. He just wants his daughter back.

"When she was 4 we had a good relationship, but now we've got a seven-year empty period," Lee said. "We'd have to start over and I would have to learn who she has become. We can't replace those seven years, but at least we'd have hope for a future."

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