Boy abducted in 1994 found in Minnesota
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - Richard Wayne Landers Jr. was just 5 years old when he and his paternal grandparents, who were upset over custody arrangements, disappeared from a small town in northern Indiana.
Nineteen years later, news that he has been found living under an assumed name in Minnesota left his mother overjoyed and "jumping up and down," her husband said Thursday shortly after police announced the break in the case.
Indiana State Police said the now 24-year-old Landers was found in Long Prairie, Minn., thanks in part to his Social Security number. His grandparents were living under aliases in a nearby town and confirmed his identity, investigators said.
Police declined to say whether the grandparents will face charges, citing the ongoing investigation.
Landers' mother, Lisa Harter, was "jumping up and down for joy" when investigators told her a few days ago that her son had been found, her husband Richard Harter told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
He said his wife is "the happiest woman on earth."
Harter said he and his wife were working with an attorney and hoped to reunite with his stepson soon. Police said Landers is married and expecting his first child.
Harter declined further comment and referred questions about the case to his attorney, who didn't immediately return phone messages Thursday. Investigators declined to release the names under which Landers and his grandparents had been living.
Police said the boy's paternal grandparents, Richard E. and Ruth A. Landers, abducted him in July 1994 because they were "upset over pending court proceedings" regarding his placement.
Police spokesman Sgt. Ron Galaviz said it appears the boy's father was never in the picture. Lisa and Richard Harter had married a year earlier.
Authorities believe the grandparents took the boy from their home in Wolcottville, about 50 miles southwest of South Bend, and fled. They were charged at the time with misdemeanor interference with custody, which was bumped up to a felony in 1999. But the charge was dismissed in 2008 after the case went cold.
Investigators reopened the case in September when Richard Harter turned over the boy's Social Security card to an Indiana State Police detective.
That turned up a man with the same Social Security number and date of birth living in Long Prairie, about 100 miles northwest of Minneapolis. A driver's license photo for the man appeared to resemble Landers, police said.
Indiana State Police then contacted Minnesota law enforcement agencies, which began investigating along with the FBI and the Social Security Administration.
The grandparents were found living in nearby Browerville, Minn.
"By all accounts, it didn't appear he suffered from any abuse, either physical or mental," Galaviz said.
Glad he's apparently unharmed. There is still hope for our missing local kids.
To all of those who questioned my questioning of this issue:
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 - From Associated Press, Huffington Post, etc., etc.
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"Lisa Harter and the boy's father, Richard Wayne Landers Sr., did live in a car for three days at one point, but at the time of the boy's disappearance in 1994, Harter had moved into an apartment, attorney Richard Muntz told The Associated Press late Friday.
Muntz said that when Harter and Landers Sr. divorced, Harter â who has mild developmental disabilities_ temporarily moved into a group home that wasn't equipped for children. The grandparents obtained custody and filed for guardianship, he said. After Harter moved into an apartment and gained custody of her son on weekends, she filed a petition to expand her custody rights when she remarried.
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Michael Landers seems to have understood his circumstances and lived willingly with his grandparents.
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Neither he nor his wife immediately responded to telephone or Facebook messages. But postings from each of their Facebook accounts appeared Friday night and Saturday on the Facebook page of KARE-TV in Minneapolis, suggesting that the grandparents did what was necessary.
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A posting from Michael Landers said: "For you people who jump to conclusions you should find out the whole story I was where I needed to be. My `grandparents' were in the the right I don't care what anyone else thinks."
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I rest my case.
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 @Reeldeal101 Lol.. I had to come back just to laugh, one more time. ''I rest my case'' LOLOLOL!! Must of really worn you out. LOL.. I was expecting tales of major abuse. Sexual, physical, at the very least neglect. Sounds like the courts were doing their job to protect the child and the mother child relationship, when these (as I said earlier) interfering grandparents decided to take matters into their own hands. Break the law, steal the child... oh the shame.Â
@Lips
Um......Yeah.  Still don't get it huh?  I guess I'm not wasting any more of my time with you then.  Can you do your own thinking?  Maybe take control of yourself and stop relying on someone else to fix your problems?  When a person says stay out of his business, it is not YOUR place to interfere. I almost cannot believe that you refuse to acknowledge that this is ridiculousness and a waste of resources.  I think you are just one of those busy-bodies that can't stay out of other peoples business.  Maybe someday you will learn the difference between right and wrong......
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 @Lips Yeah..... Keep telling yourself you don't have any problems. Maybe someday, you'll even believe it. Good luck with that.
We are all challenged by your unique point of view.
Thank you for contributing.
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 @Reeldeal101 Oh, and btw.. I'm not the one with the problem. Not the one who needs something fixed. Not the one who abducted a child. Not the one who had one abducted. Not the one who was abducted. Not the one bothered by comments on a family that obviously had some serious problems that their state intervened in. What an easy fix, heh.
 @Reeldeal101  @Lips LOLOLOLOLOL!!!! Interfering? Mind my own business? Hahahaha!!! You do realize this is a comment forum, and this is the story presented to comment on? Hmm? Grow up. If you're so bothered about the comments here, take control of yourself and don't read them. I'll comment whenever I have a slight desire to. Which I barely have now, but it's bothering you so much, and your such a jerk, that I'll likely continue. You do know I know you're trolling, right, little lost boy?
 @Reeldeal101 You think those are justifiable reasons to take someones child? Wow.... that makes 50% of children up for grabs. As for Michael's statement.. Totally what I'd expect to hear from a child who'd been kidnapped. Especially by grandparents. One thing for sure, it really doesn't hold much interest for me at this point. But since you seem to be so vested in it, by all means, carry on. lol.
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For fun, you should look up Stockholm Syndrome.
What grandparents do not have a different parenting philosophy than their kids? My kids definitely have different parenting styles than we did, but that's probably normal. As long as the children (grandchildren) are not being harmed, we grandparents need to zip our lips and let them figure it out, just like we had to do. And it sounds like these grandparents raised a loser son who was never involved in his child's life, but felt they were somehow entitled to this baby, what, like a do-over? I feel so bad for the mom and the child, I hope they can have a relationship from this point forward.Â
 @Kachina I do agree with what you are saying, but perhaps the grandparents didn't want him to be exposed to something in that household?  I am sure there was some reason that they did what they did.  It may have been wrong, but it may not have.  It is WRONG to make snap judgments without all the facts.  It seems to me that the kid is now an adult, and it seems a pretty functional and responsible one at that, so I have to raise the flag of WHY??? Which I am sure is the reason these grandparents have not already been arrested.  Unless I am to claim IGNORANCE.... Which is unfortunately the goto for some people.  And hey, you know as well as I do that having a loser child is not necessarily the product of bad parenting.  There has to be more to this story.....Something is missing.
Wow, I feel great for Lander's mom, because she gets her son back after 19 years
I cannot believe how many people there are in this world that just are too dense or shallow to actually think before they judge someone.  Is it possible that this was horrible on the part of the grandparents? Yes.  But it is ALSO possible that it was them acting in the BEST INTEREST OF THE CHILD....you morons. Don't make knee-jerk judgments without having all the facts!
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It is really too bad that stupidity isn't painful....
 @Reeldeal101 Oh, and you alone know the truth and have provided a personal waiver to these grandparents for kidnapping a five year old child. Great, now go solve all the rest of the worlds issues with your superior knowledge.
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There's plenty of possibilities. Your opinion is as ignorant or as brilliant as that of everyone else who has one.
 @Lips I hope you are ashamed enough to think next time before you speak.....
 @Lips  @Reeldeal101 I vote for ignorance, and I totally agree with you. Lips
 @Lips  @Reeldeal101 I vote for ignorant! After all, if the grandparents ran, then the outcome for them wasn't to their liking and they knew it so they blew it!
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And I heartily agree with you Lips!
They need to spend a year in jail for each year they took from her.
I could see my in-laws pulling something like this. Simply because they don't agree with my parenting decisions. Like taking the kids to a doctor rather than a naturopath. Or because I give them cow milk instead of soy. My lifestyle is different than theirs and they feel they can parent my children better than me. Sometimes grandparents are like that. The cross the line.
I've read through the comments up to this point (4:50 PM) and have not seen the obvious comparison . . . . .
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Anyone want to bring up the case of Kyron and compare it to this? Hmmm?
 @Gravity Works! ~ That thought (Kyron) flashed through my mind when I saw that headline... not because I thought it had anything directly to do with Kyron, but because it shows that you just can't know for sure in some of these cases... and when humans are involved, almost anything is possible...
In any case, it is very good to know that this young man was not the victim of someone who wanted to harm him... I can't even imagine how his mom must feel after all this time... Hope their reunion goes well..!
Grand Parents could face Federal charges, YUP, that they will Oh man I can think of so many things Like "Alienation of Love and affection" to boot.
There are many facets to this story that we do not know. Maybe the Grandparents had been the care givers for this child from birth. After 5 years Mama finally was married and turning her life around and now wanted her son. The son only knew her as this lady who came and visited him once in a while so did not want to leave his "Mama and Daddy". Everyone here needs more story to have any logical idea as to what really happened here. Now he is to be a Daddy. Maybe he needs to be ask his opinion. At 5 he was plenty old enough to have an opinion.
 @Yamhill354 So you are ok with the grandparents breaking the law? Would you be ok if your child was kidnapped just because a relative wasn't happy with the arrangements?
 @Thebigboot  @Yamhill354 You should not judge these people without knowing the circumstances surrounding why they did this.  Regardless of whether it was illegal, legal, right or wrong, it appears that they were acting in what they thought was the best interest of the child, which is the important issue here.  More of you need to use common sense and stop knee-jerking to what you think happened, what you think should be done, or what the stupid law says.  There are a lot of laws in this country and even more in this state, that are insanely stupid, and people continue to tolerate them.  Pretty soon, we wont even be able to be parents any more without permission or a license (which in some cases wouldn't be a bad idea, but nonetheless takes away our freedom)..... Get real. Stop making knee-jerk judgments that will affect your and everyone else's freedom and liberty!
 @Thebigboot  @Yamhill354 Sometimes what is legal is not necessarily what is right.
@Mikey And sometimes what is right is not necessarily legal.
Jerks like this make life so difficult for the parents. I am sure this mother would want to press charges. However, as far as this young man is concerned, his grandparents (regardless of how horribly it came about.) are his parents. They raised him. He does not know his mom really. He's also only 24 and in this economy he may still be living with his grand parents. Where is he going to go if his grandparents are locked up, his mother's? He really does not know his mother and may see her as the bad guy for locking them up even though they need to pay for their crime.
@Yourmothersir "Police said Landers is married and expecting his first child"
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Guess he could still be living with his grandparents, but most likely not.
 @cantcurestupid  @Yourmothersir The story also mentions the grandparents living in a nearly town. . .
How can they say there's been no abuse. He was kidnapped, alienated from his mother and the rest of his family. His childhood was spent under the stress of being in hiding. It's very sad, and these grandparents should pay the price.
 @Lips I don't think it's a good idea to compare what happened to this kid to abuse. It belittles actual abuse, especially since it seems the kid was raised in a quasi-normal household, even if he was taken by his grandparents. To liken that to abuse is ridiculous.
 @ARS  @Lips and common sense reigns......Bravo ARS.
 @Lips Again.....Do YOU know why they did it?  Do you know if he was stressed?  He may have had a very wonderful childhood.  Perhaps the mother was a drug-addict, alcoholic, abusive, etc......  You have NO IDEA!....  Don't knee-jerk.  I am sure if the authorities thought there was abuse here they would have already arrested someone.  Yes, It is sad, but that is no cause to punish anyone unduly. Waste your brainpower on something important.
 @Lips From the article you can't actually tell if he was living with his mother at the time his grandparents disappeared with him.
 @Lips What if he was kidnapped by his grandparents for his better good? What if they knew that his mother at the time was a drug addict and this kid would turn into a repeat criminal? Maybe the mother's boyfriend was very abusive and they feared for his safety? Also he lived under a alias so he never had to hide.
True, none of us know the circumstances the boy was in before he was "abducted". The mother may have been a danger to the child. Or, maybe the grandparents were crazy. Either way, it's for none of us to judge.
 @yahdayahda it will be if it goes to court for a jury to decide
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 @Drinkers Anonymous  @Lips That was for the courts to decide where the child should live.Â
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 @Drinkers Anonymous What if the courts had decided to place the child with the mother because the father was a threat, and they are the fathers parents? What if they were the type of grandparents that liked to be in control and interfere? What if...?
 @Lips The only thing I do know is that the courts don't know everything, people lie, many abuse cases fall through the cracks, sometimes it's too late to do anything. Also this was almost 20 years back when child services funding was low. Try look at it both ways.
They should not be allowed to get away with it at all. While I do think grandparents should be able to see the grandkids despite mom & dads splitting up to some extent (with exceptions), what they did was way wrong and is still kidnapping. They do need to pay the debt of breaking the law!
 @Khre'Riov Ael i-Mhiessan t'Rllaillieu oh no, Heaven forbid anyone breaks a law. Seriously?  Get real. Obviously you are a saint that has never broken a law.  I REALLY doubt that.  and If you were to break a law, do you think it would be better to break one that meant someone having a better life? hmmmmm.....  Again. You have no idea why they did this, so shut it!
I have mixed feelings about this.
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If the mother was a POS who would not be a good mother I would snatch the kid and give him a good home. But if they did it for selfish reasons, like they were going to be cut our of visitations, then I would agree with charges.
So I guess the police are saying it's ok to kidnap, just make sure the person isn't in danger.
@ThebigbootDon't think too hard, it sounds like you may hurt yourself.....
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It is really too bad stupidity isn't painful....
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 @Reeldeal101  @Thebigboot Oh it is. The amount you're exhibiting has already made my head hurt.
 @Lips Please stop talking. You're just making yourself look dumber by the second.  Maybe pulling your bottom lip over your head and swallowing would help.
 @Thebigboot You haven't dealt with many custody cases, have you?  Police rarely do anything, and then only if there is a clear and present danger to the child.  this is the norm, not the outlier.
 @brendan  @Thebigboot So again, it's ok to kidnap?
 @Thebigboot Â
Being a grandparent, I would hope I'd do it before I'd let my grandchild be abused. Grandparents have no rights and they may have had no other choice. Considering what they likely had to give up to do this, I suspect the grandparents may have been morally in the right.
 @Thebigboot Â
Legally never. Ethically, practically, and morally sometimes it is. Depends on whether the child was in danger from being with the mother. They will probably get some kind of punishment but maybe they will consider it a fair trade-off.