Sometime before midnight on April 20, 1993, two-year-old Jessica DeBoer of Ann Arbor, Michigan, is scheduled to disappear, leaving behind a heartbroken couple she calls Mommy and Daddy, a dog named Miles, her yellow bedroom and just about everything she has ever known, except perhaps a few favorite stuffed animals. Under court order, the dark-eyed, inquisitive girl will be transported 400 miles west to the small farming community of Blairstown, Iowa, to begin life anew as Anna Lee Schmidt.
For more information:
Jon D. Hull, “The Ties That Traumatize : A bitter custody battle over Baby Jessica sets adoptive parents everywhere on edge”, Time, April 12, 1993.
“In Re Clausen, Natural v Adoptive Parents, 442 Mich 648 (1993)”, Michigan Bar Journal, March 2009, pp. 27-29.