US coulple almost adopted stolen Guatemalan baby

JUAN CARLOS LLORCA

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — For 14 months, Ana Escobar studied the tiny fingers of every passing baby, searching for a girl with pinkies that curved gracefully outward, just like those of her missing daughter.

Then one day she saw her, in the arms of a foster mother helping process her adoption by an Indiana couple: A straight-haired toddler who appeared to be a stranger, except for her unmistakable fingers.

"I was in shock. I could not move. I could not do anything," Escobar told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview.

DNA tests eventually proved what Escobar already knew: The girl was her daughter, taken at gunpoint in March 2007, when she was just 6 months old.

Esther Sulamita is the first stolen Guatemalan baby found through a challenge of the mother-and-child DNA test results that are supposed to guarantee the legitimacy of each adoption.

She likely won't be the last. Jorge Meng, spokesman for the attorney general's office, said officials suspect more cases will be found because the lawyers in Esther's case have vouched for documents in dozens of other pending adoptions, as well as many more involving children now growing up as Americans.

Authorities issued arrest warrants for a doctor, two lawyers and two others in Esther's case. Authorities suspect they could find more than a dozen other stolen babies in their review of 2,286 pending U.S. adoptions.

Even some completed adoptions are being questioned: At least two are under investigation to determine if the children — now growing up as American citizens — were stolen, said Jaime Tecu, a former prosecutor who is leading the Guatemalan National Adoption Council's review.

"After this, we are ordering DNA tests for all children whose mothers present credible indications that they were abducted, and we are asking parents of those two babies in the U.S. to voluntarily submit DNA tests of their adoptive children," said Elizabeth Hernandez, council president.

Authorities have long believed that some of the nearly 5,000 Guatemalan babies adopted by U.S. couples each year were stolen and sold to baby brokers who worked with doctors and lawyers to create false identities for the children.

Guatemalan adoption officials say there is no evidence the Indiana couple knew the baby they were trying to adopt was stolen. Their attorney, Charlie Rice, said the two had already traveled to Guatemala and spent time caring for the girl.

"These people are absolutely devastated, absolutely horrified over the idea that a child was stolen from a mother," Rice said. "There is grief over the loss of the child, but absolute joy that the mother has been found."

Authorities have said adoptive U.S. families — many of whom spend $30,000 or more for what they were told are legitimately surrendered babies — are also victims of the corrupt old system, which is now being replaced.

At least two other stolen children have been found in nurseries that handled international adoptions — one with a fake identity — although neither had officially been put up for adoption yet, Tecu said.

Escobar's nightmare began the morning of March 26, 2007. She was tending her family's small shoe store in a poor neighborhood just north of Guatemala City when a gunman and three others arrived and locked her in a storage room.

When she finally got out, the baby and a few pairs of shoes were missing.

She doesn't know why her baby was stolen.

"Maybe it's because they saw I was vulnerable, all alone in the shoe store," she said.

She immediately began searching hospitals, orphanages, police stations, obsessed with finding her daughter. When the baby's father did little to help, she accused him of being involved somehow. Prosecutors investigated, but found no evidence.

The couple eventually separated and closed the shoe shop. Escobar moved in with her mother, and lost touch with Esther's father. She no longer thinks he was involved, and says her accusations were fueled by anger.

With few answers and only her mother's support, she pushed on.

As Guatemala's reform efforts gained momentum in August with a high-profile police raid of the Casa Quivira adoption agency, Escobar demanded to see the babies, armed with a tattered picture of her daughter. She found nothing, but as the fraud scandal grew, she became more active, haunting agencies and government offices.

"That photograph kept me company during those terrible 14 months," she said.

Guatemalan lawmakers imposed a tough new adoption process this year, but agreed under U.S. pressure to grandfather in the cases initiated under the old, corrupt system. Then, signs of fraud abounding, the Adoptions Council decided to freeze these adoptions and take another close look at each case.

Escobar sat in the council's lobby, studying the babies as they were brought in. On the second day, she saw Esther in the arms of a foster mother.

She asked if she could hold the child. The foster mother handed her the girl, and Escobar studied her hands. The woman soon left with the girl, but by then Escobar was so convinced — and persuaded prosecutors to order them to return for another look.

This time, the foster mother deposited the girl along with all her belongings and said she wanted nothing more to do with her — an abrupt surrender that convinced authorities to order new DNA tests.

At that time, Esther was officially Susy Amarilis Fernandez Molina. Her case file showed no evidence of fraud, and she was only weeks away from being handed over to the Indiana couple.

After the girl's DNA matched Escobar, arrest warrants were issued against five Guatemalans: the woman listed as the birth mother; foster mother Juana Elizabeth Perez Estrada; Dr. Feliciano Hernandez Citan; the lawyer brokering the adoption, Jorge Mario Sum Santiago; and the lawyer representing the U.S. couple, Otto Rene Galvez Abril.

Four immediately disappeared. The doctor was arrested and then released on $400 bail after telling a judge he did not know the alleged mother and some time ago had lost the rubber stamp used to forge his approval of birth documents. Reached by the AP by phone, Sum Santiago said from hiding that he had no reason to suspect the case was fraudulent and plans to sue the woman who posed as the birth mother.

He also says he has about 10 other pending adoption cases and has worked on dozens of them over the years.

Knowing she finally had her daughter back was the happiest moment of Escobar's life, but there are cruel reminders of everything she lost. She still has almost no information about what happened to her child for more than a year.

Esther has no memory of her mother. She is withdrawn, aggressive and often refuses to eat.

"So far, she has not fully adapted to me. She ... pulls my hair, bites and kicks me. You have no idea how hard it is when your own child rejects you," Escobar said.

She suspects Esther may have been abused, and investigators are looking for any evidence of that.

"She will not take toys, and when you lift your hand as if to hit her, she cowers and runs away," Escobar said. Both mother and daughter attend weekly sessions with a psychologist.

Esther does have moments, though, when events of the past year melt away. At a park, the toddler chased a cousin around a basketball court and squealed with delight. All the while, Escobar kept a close watch.