Girl Gone 14 Years Found Safe; Mom Charged
A 22-year-old woman missing more than 14 years has been found safe in California, and her mother is accused of abducting her.
Dean Click told police his daughter, Jessica Click-Hill, who was 8, vanished in Sept. 1995 from their home in Walnut Creek, Calif., near San Francisco. He said he believed she may have been taken by his wife at the time, Wendy Hill. A warrant was issued for Hill's arrest in 1996, but she disappeared. The FBI issued a second arrest warrant in 1997, for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children contacted authorities eight months ago with a tip, saying Jessica and Hill might be in Monrovia, in Los Angeles County.
According to the San Jose Mercury News, the FBI and Walnut Grove police tracked Hill down and arrested her, then found Jessica elsewhere. Hill was booked Thursday into the County Jail in Martinez, Calif. She has made bail.
The FBI didn't tell the newspaper whether Jessica lives alone or if she sees herself as an abduction victim.
Click says he hasn't been able to talk to Jessica yet, but, "I've looked forward to this moment. The good news is that Jessica is alive and well and we have found her, and yet I have not been able to speak with her. She's an adult now, she's 22 years old. And she has a right to privacy. So, even the Walnut Creek (police) cannot give me her address and phone number.
"The other part," Click told "Early Show Saturday Edition" co-anchor Erica Hill, "a flip side of that, though, I that I've given them all my contact information, my work phone, our address, all the phones, are being forwarded to Jessica. And she is in a position to call me if she would like to. And I would welcome that conversation in a heartbeat. The other thing I can do, I've been told, is to write a letter, like a love letter, saying what I want to say to Jessica."
What would he say to Jessica if he could contact her?
"What I would say is to Jessica today is that I have missed her so much and I still love her so much, and it's so great that we have this opportunity to continue with our lives. A void of 14 years cannot be refilled. That gap can't be brought back and refilled. And yet, today is a good day to start a new life and a new communication.
"There's a whole side of her life that she hasn't seen, the paternal side, my side. We have a whole group of -- I have a brother, Jessica has cousins - a whole family waiting to see and talk to her and reestablish that connection with her.
" … I would say to Jessica I love you, I have missed you terribly. I've thought about you and prayed for you over the last 14 years, and it is time to get together again, it's time that she learned the truth about me, whatever she's been told about me, and it's time to really get to know each other even though we've had such a gap in time."
Walnut Creek Police Capt. Tim Schultz told Erica Hill that Wendy Hill had been able to elude the law all this time by using "an a-k-a (also-known-as). She used her mother's name. And we think she was in several states. We're at number five right now over the course of the 15 years."
Copyright 2010 CBS. All rights reserved. Dean Click told police his daughter, Jessica Click-Hill, who was 8, vanished in Sept. 1995 from their home in Walnut Creek, Calif., near San Francisco. He said he believed she may have been taken by his wife at the time, Wendy Hill. A warrant was issued for Hill's arrest in 1996, but she disappeared. The FBI issued a second arrest warrant in 1997, for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children contacted authorities eight months ago with a tip, saying Jessica and Hill might be in Monrovia, in Los Angeles County.
According to the San Jose Mercury News, the FBI and Walnut Grove police tracked Hill down and arrested her, then found Jessica elsewhere. Hill was booked Thursday into the County Jail in Martinez, Calif. She has made bail.
The FBI didn't tell the newspaper whether Jessica lives alone or if she sees herself as an abduction victim.
Click says he hasn't been able to talk to Jessica yet, but, "I've looked forward to this moment. The good news is that Jessica is alive and well and we have found her, and yet I have not been able to speak with her. She's an adult now, she's 22 years old. And she has a right to privacy. So, even the Walnut Creek (police) cannot give me her address and phone number.
"The other part," Click told "Early Show Saturday Edition" co-anchor Erica Hill, "a flip side of that, though, I that I've given them all my contact information, my work phone, our address, all the phones, are being forwarded to Jessica. And she is in a position to call me if she would like to. And I would welcome that conversation in a heartbeat. The other thing I can do, I've been told, is to write a letter, like a love letter, saying what I want to say to Jessica."
What would he say to Jessica if he could contact her?
"What I would say is to Jessica today is that I have missed her so much and I still love her so much, and it's so great that we have this opportunity to continue with our lives. A void of 14 years cannot be refilled. That gap can't be brought back and refilled. And yet, today is a good day to start a new life and a new communication.
"There's a whole side of her life that she hasn't seen, the paternal side, my side. We have a whole group of -- I have a brother, Jessica has cousins - a whole family waiting to see and talk to her and reestablish that connection with her.
" … I would say to Jessica I love you, I have missed you terribly. I've thought about you and prayed for you over the last 14 years, and it is time to get together again, it's time that she learned the truth about me, whatever she's been told about me, and it's time to really get to know each other even though we've had such a gap in time."
Walnut Creek Police Capt. Tim Schultz told Erica Hill that Wendy Hill had been able to elude the law all this time by using "an a-k-a (also-known-as). She used her mother's name. And we think she was in several states. We're at number five right now over the course of the 15 years."
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Surely he did not mean to say he wanted to write his daughter a love letter. Dad's do not normally write their children "love letters" unless they practice incest --is that why mom ran with the girl--because Daddy wanted her in ways that were not appropriate? Why would he say he wanted to send her a love letter? That is nasty.
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WALNUT CREEK, Calif., March 6, 2010
Girl Gone 14 Years Found Safe; Mom Charged
Jessica Click-Hill Was 8 When She Disappeared from Calif. Home; FBI Nabs Mother on Kidnap Counts; Dad Overjoyed Daughter OK
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o Dean Click and Jessica Click-Hil in undated family photo
Dean Click and Jessica Click-Hil in undated family photo (CBS)
o Wendy Hill as she was booked into Thursday into the County Jail in Martinez, Calif.
Wendy Hill as she was booked into Thursday into the County Jail in Martinez, Calif. (CBS)
o Computer-generated image provided by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children shows what Jessica Click-Hill, now 22, might look like today. She vanished more thanb 14 years ago from her family's Walnut Creek, Calif. home. The FBI just found her safe, as well as her mother, Wendy Hill, who's been charged with kidnapping her.
Computer-generated image provided by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children shows what Jessica Click-Hill, now 22, might look like today. She vanished more thanb 14 years ago from her family's Walnut Creek, Calif. home. The FBI just found her safe, as well as her mother, Wendy Hill, who's been charged with kidnapping her. (CBS)
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(CBS) A 22-year-old woman missing more than 14 years has been found safe in California, and her mother is accused of abducting her.
Dean Click told police his daughter, Jessica Click-Hill, who was 8, vanished in Sept. 1995 from their home in Walnut Creek, Calif., near San Francisco. He said he believed she may have been taken by his wife at the time, Wendy Hill. A warrant was issued for Hill's arrest in 1996, but she disappeared. The FBI issued a second arrest warrant in 1997, for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children contacted authorities eight months ago with a tip, saying Jessica and Hill might be in Monrovia, in Los Angeles County.
According to the San Jose Mercury News, the FBI and Walnut Grove police tracked Hill down and arrested her, then found Jessica elsewhere. Hill was booked Thursday into the County Jail in Martinez, Calif. She has made bail.
The FBI didn't tell the newspaper whether Jessica lives alone or if she sees herself as an abduction victim.
Click says he hasn't been able to talk to Jessica yet, but, "I've looked forward to this moment. The good news is that Jessica is alive and well and we have found her, and yet I have not been able to speak with her. She's an adult now, she's 22 years old. And she has a right to privacy. So, even the Walnut Creek (police) cannot give me her address and phone number.
"The other part," Click told "Early Show Saturday Edition" co-anchor Erica Hill, "a flip side of that, though, I that I've given them all my contact information, my work phone, our address, all the phones, are being forwarded to Jessica. And she is in a position to call me if she would like to. And I would welcome that conversation in a heartbeat. The other thing I can do, I've been told, is to write a letter, like a love letter, saying what I want to say to Jessica."
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Surely he did not mean to say he wanted to write his daughter a love letter. Dad's do not normally write their children "love letters" unless they practice incest --is that why mom ran with the girl--because Daddy wanted her in ways that were not appropriate? Why would he say he wanted to send her a love letter? That is nasty.
How are you going to teach a child equality when you insist on privilege instead. Technically speaking the law is written with equality in mind, its the judges we keep electing that keep this ancient notion of 'custody' alive. It's as wrong as wrong can be.
Now process the fact that women and the leading abusers and murderers of children in US homes.
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/pubs/cm06/figure4_2.htm
Not that this has anything to do with the article. But putting bogus, and misleading numbers is exactly why problems continue in USA today. It is the politicizing and generation of false information and outright lies that continue to perpetuate the problems.
We need to get past the idea that men are bad and women are good. This is not the case. Women are every bit as despicable as men - but the get free passes because the court systems were setup centuries ago based upon a chivalrious culture with the assumption that women could not and would not be held accountable for their actions because they were weak - and as such were treated like children. Our laws today, STILL do not hold women accountable in the same way they hold men accountable. Until they do, women's equality is a pipe dream.
Don't believe it? What about the rash of pedophilic statutory rapes of young males by women teachers? MOST of those women get off with very very little jail time (if any), while men committing the same infractions do hard time for years and years. Its time we hold women accountable and throw THE SAME BOOK at them that they'd throw at a man.
The simple fact is, women are still treated like children, and most women have no interest in playing by the same rules as men, unless it is to their benefit. THAT is not "equality" of the sexes. THAT is sexism in its more pure form.
To extrapolate that this guy somehow deserved to have his child stolen, is unwarranted. If the mother stole the child it was probably because she was facing up to the fact that the court was going to decide against her. In spite of the stories we read, the court is not always wrong. The court usually tries to do what is in the best interest of the child. So this woman circumvented due process and kidnapped a child. She needs to pay for depriving the child of seeing their father for so many years. It is a crime.
Your comments are out of line.
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Says it all....