Savoie Speaks Out on Husband's Release
Amy Savoie said on "The Early Show" her husband Christopher is agitated and traumatized after his release Thursday from a Japan jail.
"It's been a terrible ordeal," she said of her husband's two-week imprisonment.
Christopher Savoie was arrested Sept. 28 after allegedly grabbing his two children, Isaac, 8, and Rebecca, 6, from his Japanese ex-wife as they walked to school in Southern Japan.
CBS News producer Lucy Craft reported Noriko Savoie defied a court order after their divorce in the U.S. and took their children to Japan in August. But in Japan, U.S. laws carry no weight.
However, though Christopher has been released, the situation with the children remains the same.
"In addition to dealing with the trauma from the last two weeks," Amy Savoie said, "Again he's faced with the reality that the family life he had in Tennessee has been completely dismantled, and apparently, irreversibly. So Isaac and Rebecca are not going to be with him. They've been taken from him."
Amy Savoie said the children had a happy home in Tennessee.
American Dad in Japanese Jail "Frightened"
"They were very happy children here. And we're still heartbroken by that," she said. "And we have a long road ahead of us."
Family law attorney Mikiko Otani told CBS News Christopher never expected to be arrested.
She said, "He had no idea that his act was criminal under Japanese law because he is [the] biological father. He has the legal custody right, so he was very much shocked."
Police declined to press charges, Craft reported, after deciding Savoie was not a flight risk. They said Savoie expressed remorse and promised to use mediation to arrange access to his children.
Amy Savoie told "Early Show" co-anchor Maggie Rodriguez Christopher feels he won't likely get his children back. In cases where children have been abducted to Japan, she said, the children have not be reunited with the American parent.
Savoie added, "This story's not just about us or Christopher or Isaac and Rebecca," she said. "It's allowed to us shine a light on so many families who have been devastated by these actions."