Eva Marie Fiedler found after 26 years

Back in August 1984, Nancy Fiedler ran off with her six-year-old daughter, Eva Marie, from their home in New Jersey. It was one of the oldest family abduction cases profiled on the NCMEC, and I knew very little about it, just the basic facts. Well, Eva has been found alive and well in Nevada and her mother has been arrested. The break came when the now-adult Eva, who is about to be married, went to the courthouse to change her name so she could get a marriage license. She is now 32 and has been living with her mom in Incline Village for the past twenty or so years. Her father now lives in New Hampshire.

Several of the articles say Eva had had no idea that she was a missing child and her mother was wanted, but this article says they used a variety of alias names, and if that is the case she must have been aware that something was unusual. She’s probably having a very rough time of it right now — and all this right before her wedding! I wonder what her mother told her all these years. I hope she reunites with her searching family and I hope she gets some therapy.

Just goes to show you should never give up. Answers that come late are still answers.

Articles:
The New Jersey Star-Ledger
The Associated Press
The Courier News
The Courier News again
KOLO TV

Logan Tucker maybe found?

As a Charley Project blog commenter noted, they’ve found bones in Oklahoma that they hope might be the remains of six-year-old Logan Tucker, who’s been missing since 2002 and is presumed murdered by his mother, Katherine Rutan.

Rutan was convicted of her son’s murder in 2007. What is truly remarkable is that the jury deliberated only two hours. That’s an incredibly short period of time for any murder case, and all the more so since for this one there was no body. But Rutan really had no defense to speak of — as far as I can remember the best her lawyer could come up with was the old “reasonable doubt” thing. There was ample evidence that she had been an abusive parent, had been trying to unload Logan for some time (if she had waited one more day, the Oklahoma DHS had agreed to take him off her hands), and tried to cover up his disappearance with a series of lies.

The star witness at that trial was Logan’s brother Justin. Justin said he was in the car with his mom and Logan, who was pale, slumped over and had tape over his mouth and eyes. Then Mom parked at an abandoned house and took Logan and a shovel out of the vehicle, walked out of Justin’s sight, and returned later sans Logan. So perhaps it’s no wonder the jury didn’t take long.

I really hope these bones are his. So far it hasn’t even been established yet that they’re human, though the sheriff thinks they are.

Prisoners donate to Kyron Horman fund

According to this Examiner article, inmates at the Oregon State Penitentiary donated $541 to the Kyron Horman Foundation. This is especially generous considering that they have so little — the article says most inmates make less than $35 a month at their prison jobs. Go, prisoners!

I really, really hope Kyron gets found sometime in the next two months, because I don’t want to have to wade through all the press articles about him to write up a coherent casefile.