A young girl abducted from Anchorage three years ago has been located in Southern California, according to the Glendale, Calif. police department.
The now-7-year-old girl was reported abducted from Anchorage in 2010, allegedly taken by her mother, Cora Francis Malone. On Nov. 14, Malone was in a vehicle with two other adults when they were stopped for a seatbelt violation in Glendale, a few miles north of Los Angeles.
Officers became suspicious of the adults' answers regarding two children -- both girls, ages 3 and 7 -- in the vehicle, wrote Tahnee Lightfoot, spokeswoman for the Glendale Police Department.
Malone, 39, and Pablo Lapuente Samaniego, 49, were giving "very vague" answers regarding the children, Lightfoot said. The 3-year-old was not in a child seat, but was lying down in the back, she said. The pair seemed "very uncomfortable with the questions," prompting police to run the children's names through the database. They discovered that there was an active warrant for Malone regarding the child's abduction.
An arrest warrant for Malone was issued on Dec. 12, 2012, two years after the child had been removed from Alaska.
According to court documents, the child was placed into state custody with the Office of Children's Services in 2010. Malone reportedly took the child out of the state later that year.
Erica Rothenbuhler, a child services specialist with OCS, made several unsuccessful attempts to contact Malone, and Malone would only call Rothenbuhler from a blocked number, according to the court documents. The last contact Rothenbuhler had with Malone was in June 2011.
Rothenbuhler said in the complaint filed in Anchorage court that she discovered Malone had applied for food stamps in Pasadena, Calif. and claimed to have an address there. She contacted police requesting assistance in locating Malone. The Pasadena police department told OCS that Malone was living in California with a family member.
The case was referred to the Anchorage Police Department on Sept. 11, 2012. Between September and December of 2012, a detective spoke with Malone's mother, Deborah Engel, who said that she "did not want to have any dealings" with Malone, according to the complaint. The detective also tried to contact Malone's aunt, Sylvia Huerta, who reportedly did not return any calls.
A custody order for the child was issued on Nov. 13, 2012. Malone called in for the hearing, and told OCS that the agency should "drop" the matter involving her children.
Pablo Samaniego was contacted on Dec. 11, 2012. He told the detective that Malone was gone, but that he didn't know where she was. Samaniego reportedly said OCS "took the custody illegally."
The arrest warrant for Malone was issued the next day, on Dec. 12, 2012.
Following the traffic stop last week, Malone was charged with kidnapping and child abduction. Samaniego was charged with child abduction, kidnapping and conspiracy for his alleged assistance in hiding the child. A third adult in the car was determined not to be involved with the alleged kidnapping.
Both children were placed into protective custody in California. The Alaska Office of Children's Services is developing travel plans to bring both children back to the state, Lightfoot wrote.
Since the state of Alaska had decided not to extradite Malone, the pair were not charged, and were released on Thursday, the Glendale police department said.
Clint Campion, deputy district attorney with the Anchorage District Attorney's office, said that he made the decision not to extradite Malone in August based on the known facts of the case.
He said that the district attorney's office now plans to "re-evaluate the decision" pending new information from the Anchorage Police Department that he was expecting to receive on Tuesday.
Contact Laurel Andrews at laurel(at)alaskadispatch.