Una mujer cuyo ex esposo secuestró hace 30 años a la hija de ambos, entonces de 21 meses de edad, pudo reencontrarse este fin de semana con la ahora joven de 31 años, en coincidencia con la celebración del Día de la Madre en EEUU.
Un agente de policía acudió este sábado a la casa de Laura Gooder, en la localidad de Frederic (Michigan), para comunicarle que su hija, Genievieve Rachel Nielsen, se encontraba sana y salva, y vivía en Arizona, según informó el periódico The Detroit News.
Laura Gooder, de 53 años, no había sabido nada de ella desde el fin de semana de 1976 en el que también se celebraba el Día de la Madre, cuando Eric Douglas Nielsen, del que estaba separada, recogió a la pequeña y nunca regresó.
La hija de Gooder creció con otro nombre y con la convicción de que su madre había muerto en un accidente de tráfico, según fuentes policiales, que añadieron que fue el propio Nielsen quien les proporcionó la información que permitió localizar a la joven.
Laura Gooder, -casada de nuevo y con otros tres hijos-, calificó la historia de "surrealista" y aseguró que está a la espera de que Genievieve se ponga en contacto con ella.
-----------------------------------------------------
LA NOTICIA EN INGLÉS PUBLICADA EN LA PRENSA AMERICANA
Mother's Day miracle: Mom gets word of daughter kidnapped as toddler in 1976
30-year investigation finally comes to fruition
Laura Gooder this weekend will be like many mothers, waiting for a Mother's Day call from her daughter.
But unlike other moms, Gooder has hopes of speaking to her child, Genevieve Rachel Nielsen, for the first time in 30 years to the very day.
Gooder has spent three decades wondering about the fate of Genevieve, kidnapped over Mother's Day weekend in 1976 by Gooder's estranged husband, Eric Douglas Nielsen.
A police officer arrived on Gooder's Frederic, Mich. doorstep this morning with miraculous news: Genevieve, now a 32-year-old woman, had been located alive in Arizona. She was raised under another name, which law enforcement officials declined to release, and grew up believing her mom had been killed in an auto accident.
"It is pretty surreal," Gooder, 53, told The Detroit News today. "I am keeping my fingers crossed and waiting for her to call. She had been told I was dead."
In 1976, Gooder left her then 21-month-old daughter Genevieve with Nielsen for an overnight visit at his home in Oakland County. Gooder had asked her husband for a divorce a few weeks earlier.
Nielsen left the area with the girl and detectives began a frustrating, 30-year search for him. Law enforcement officials said Nielsen's family initially gave conflicting reports of his whereabouts when questioned by investigators.
Police said Genevieve's Social Security number never was used and in 1990, Nielsen stopped using his own Social Security number.
In September 2005, the U.S. Marshals Service got involved and issued a federal arrest warrant for Nielsen, 54. As it turns out, Nielsen was incarcerated in an Arizona correctional facility under a different identity and on an unrelated charge.
A tip led Oakland County investigators to visit the Arizona prison May 11, Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said today. His detectives still are double-checking to make sure they have the right man and then will extradite Nielsen to Michigan as soon as possible. If convicted of state kidnapping charges as well as federal fugitive crimes, he would face a minimum of a decade in prison, Bouchard said.
"These are serious charges," the sheriff noted.
Gooder applauded the efforts of the department in general and Det. David Wurtz in particular. Wurtz has worked the case since 1990 and is relentless, she said.
"My detective was great," she said. "If not for him, I don't think this would have happened."
Wurtz was traveling from Arizona today and not available for comment. Oakland County Undersheriff Mike McCabe, who also has worked the case over the years and even was thrown out of Nielsen's mother's home during intense questioning in 1990, said Wurtz was tenacious.
"The guy does not let go," McCabe said today, noting Wurtz recently solved a six-year-old case involving the deaths of five children in an arson fire. "He is the pit-bull of our office."
Bouchard stressed that the case is coming to closure because his department and the U.S. Marshals teamed together. Gooder said federal involvement speeded up the case's progress.
Gooder said she has never lost hope her daughter would be found and that according to what police have told her, the young woman appears to have grown up to be a good person.
Wurtz has relayed Gooder's contact information to Genevieve and given the young woman an update on what it has been like trying to track her down, Gooder said. Wurtz also has described to Gooder what her daughter looks like today. She has slight resemblance to a computer-generated photo of what she would look like today that the National Center for Missing and exploited Children created to help police track Nielsen and their daughter.
Bouchard said Gooder's daughter is traumatized by the revelations.
"She obviously was told something completely different from the father," Bouchard said. "She is devastated."
Gooder has remarried and has three sons. They are dying to hear from Genevieve, Gooder said.
"They are so excited, Gooder said. "Everything has come full circle. It has been 30 years to the day that she was taken. It is already the best mother's day gift I could ever have."
You can reach Santiago Esparza at (313) 222-2320 or sesparza@detnews.com.
