(Part 1 of 4 parts) Reuniting a family

February 10 2003

James Fuller Daily Herald Staff Writer

Cold sweat soaks Don Anderson's sheets. Then the nightly dream of lost time and uncertainty jars him awake. Anderson's heart pounds as his mind revisits the same torturous possibilities as yesterday and all the days before and still winds up with the same non-answers.

It's 4 a.m. Time to find his children.

His life is wrought with coping and hoping, seeking and finding just enough to torment and prolong.

"You can't talk to your kids," Anderson said of the not knowing. "You can't see them. You don't even know what they look like. You hang on to all their stuff, hoping they're going to be back, but you don't know."

They were 10 and 12 the last time he saw them, at their Vernon Hills home. Now Bryan and Sean are 13 and 14. He's spent $200,000 and at least four hours a day over the course of those missed birthdays trying to bring them home. Anderson has spent more than a year traipsing through Mexico and the halls of Congress, yet Bryan and Sean remain ghosts to him. But they didn't disappear on their own.

This is what happens when your children are stolen.

Divorce, disappearance

After a divorce in 1996, Anderson and his ex-wife, Sonia Galindo, shared custody of Sean and Bryan. But Galindo, who had moved to Buffalo Grove, couldn't live up to her end of the bargain. The boys missed appointments, school and church. Her violations of a divorce deal stockpiled, resulting in court-appointed mediation. Both the mediator and a conciliator recommended Anderson receive sole custody of the children because of Galindo's behavior problems and lack of parenting skills.

By 1999, Anderson had sole custody of the boys in Vernon Hills. Galindo had visitation with child support obligations.

The war began.

Police and Anderson believe that's when Galindo decided Sean and Bryan would be with her no matter what.

"She started to blame me because the kids weren't with her," Anderson said. "It didn't look good for her image. People thought something was wrong with her, and she didn't want anybody to think something was wrong. Without the kids, she was nobody. I was threatening that piece of her."

On the last day of Sean and Bryan's 2000 summer vacation from Daniel Wright Junior High in Lincolnshire-Prairie View, Anderson waited for a return that never came. Just a few months before, police accused Galindo of taking Sean and Bryan out of the state during Anderson's designated custody time and without his permission.

Anderson thought Galindo had snatched them again. Until the police called.

Galindo had filed police reports saying Anderson physically and sexually abused Bryan. The report alone necessitated an investigation, and Galindo secured an order of protection against Anderson to keep him from Sean and Bryan.

Police said the charges against Anderson quickly unraveled through lack of evidence. Anderson said Galindo's ever-changing accounts of the abuse met with seemingly spoon-fed testimony against Anderson from Bryan.

Anderson received visitation while the investigation continued. But police say Galindo took the boys and bolted to Mexico. Galindo is now an FBI fugitive with four felony warrants. Police say evidence shows she fabricated the abuse allegations.

A parent's nightmare

It's a similar story for thousands of parents in the United States each year. Various reports estimate the number of cases of parents abducting children from other parents in the United States ranges from 200 a day to 350,000 a year. In many of those, children are taken to foreign countries.

For those children, Mexico is often a black hole destination. More abducted children are taken to Mexico than any other country, according to a 2001 compliance report on the Hague Convention. The 1980 convention set in place international rules to follow in abduction cases. Nearly 25 years later, Mexico lacks full compliance.

The report shows the State Department taking as many as 36 separate actions to get a child back from Mexico to no avail.

Stuart Patt, a spokesman for the State Department's Bureau of Consular Affairs, said getting a child back depends mainly on the foreign country's receptiveness to the United States' view that a child living there was abducted.

"Ultimately, it's going to be the determination of that country's officials and courts as to what's going to happen," Patt said.

Guillermo Galarza of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children said that reality can be a nightmare for desperate parents.

While 70 percent of Mexican children abducted to the United States are returned, only 3 to 4 percent of U.S. kids come back from Mexico, he said. Asked about that imbalance, Patt said the Mexican government is improving, but "there's still some work to do."

Working under the Hague Convention can be slow and frustrating in Mexico, said the National Center's Galarza.

Nothing Anderson has in place in the United States will necessarily help him. He has the added burden of Galindo's dual-nationality, a status conveyed to his sons by birth.

"To the Mexican government, these kids are from Mexico," Galarza said. "The custody decree doesn't mean anything in Mexico. It doesn't mean a nickel."

The Hague Convention itself can be an obstacle. For instance, the fact that criminal charges await Galindo in the United States can be a deterrent because the Mexican government might view her imprisonment as an emotional harm against Sean and Bryan.

Not only that, but as soon as the boys logged a full year in Mexico, returning them to America became a judge's discretionary matter, rather than an automatic. Foreign courts often believe a year spent in a new place creates ties that can be traumatic to undo for a child.

Police say abducting parents, including Galindo, often file a special appeal in Mexico called an "amparo" when a Hague order to return a child to the United States is issued. The appeal claims a violation of constitutional rights that must be examined, often dragging the case beyond the year time frame for automatic return of a child to the United States.

With all these roadblocks, cases that should only take a couple weeks to resolve in a perfect situation can take years.

That's when some parents lose patience and try to re-abduct their children from the original snatcher.

"We don't recommend parents do that," Galarza said. "You're breaking the laws in that other country. Not only that, there's the emotion of being abducted again. Usually the abducting parent has told the children many things about the other parent to create hatred. When a child has been told that their dad is evil and all of a sudden he takes them, that's very traumatic."

All that's left: memories

Don Anderson understands that trauma. He has some of his own.

Bryan and Sean's clothes, toys and rooms are untouched. He's converted his Vernon Hills basement into a teen recreation room for the boys. There will be something waiting to receive them when his sons return. If they return.

Anderson's children have never contacted him. Are they unable to? Have they been brainwashed? Do they hate him? Do they think he hates them?

It's a daily question roulette Anderson plays. He's done everything the laws and guidelines say he should do to bring his children back. No results.

Because the boys are believed to have been taken from Galindo's Buffalo Grove home, that town's police are in charge of the investigation. Even with 19 years on the force, Buffalo Grove officer John Heidersheidt said he's never had a case quite like Anderson's.

Galindo's family living in the area won't tell Heidersheidt anything. Her sister doesn't respond to interview requests. There is no local funding for Heidersheidt to follow leads in Texas. Now, he's not even sure where Galindo and the kids are.

"It's real tough," Heidersheidt said. "They could have changed their names, gotten false identification. She's basically kind of disappeared off the face of the earth. We need information desperately."

Anderson lives for that information. When he's angry, he builds information packets for congressmen. Basketball gives him an outlet for his aggression. He allows himself a set amount of time, no more than 15 minutes a day, to cry.

Anderson's mindset is even open to Galindo remaining in his sons' lives. All just to have them in his life rather than haunting it.

"If she comes back, I won't prosecute her," he said. "She's their mother. What she did was really wrong, illegal, horrible, but it's up to her to get help. It's not up to me to punish her. I just want to get the kids back so they can live a happy and healthy life."

If you have information on the Anderson case, call:

- Buffalo Grove Police Department: (847) 459-2560
- National Center for Missing and Exploited Children: (877) 446-2632