Bryan McGlothin (2008)

A child’s mind is malleable. Whether convincing the child that Santa’s visit is just around the corner or that the child’s dangerous parent is behind every corner, the child believes, especially when the one molding the child’s mind is an abusive parent.

In the case of parental abduction the child receives only the input and coaching of the taking parent.

Dr. Amy Baker reports in her book Adult Children of Parental Alienation Syndrome “…contact with the targeted parent was minimized or eliminated all together. In this way, the child did not have any independent experiences of the targeted parent and the parent him- or herself had no opportunity to explain or counter the campaign of lies and denigration”.

What can be said in the cases of stranger abductions and the abductor’s ability to control the child? What comparisons can be made, if any, between parental and stranger abductors and could the tactical techniques, used by both, be compared in the ability to control and mold the child’s thinking? If the child is alienated from family, friends and familiar surroundings, does a parent abductor have a greater success than a stranger abductor in controlling the child?

At age 11 Shawn Hornbeck was kidnapped by Mike Devlin. Devlin used both physical and psychological abuse to control young Shawn. The first month of Shawn’s ordeal he was duct taped to a futon while Devlin was away from home working and running errands. At one point Shawn was told he was going home. Instead, his captor drove him to a remote, wooded area and told Shawn he would either do everything Delvin told him or he would die. The psychological and physical abuse worked well. In fact, only seven months after the abduction, Shawn was allowed to make friends with a 13-year-old neighbor, Tony Douglas. Shawn spent countless days with the Douglas family. Telling them he was home schooled, and that Mike Devlin was his father; the Douglas family thought nothing. In fact they felt Delvin was a good father. Even a little, too, good perhaps as he spoiled Shawn by buying him most anything he wanted.

For the next four years Shawn went on many outings and Holidays with the Douglas family. He practically became an extension of their family, and still, he never said a word as to his true identity. In fact, Shawn and Tony were stopped while riding their bikes after curfew. The officer escorted both boys back to the apartment complex yet Shawn said nothing of his abduction. Shawn was allowed to use the computer and even sent an email to the foundation his parents had created to help find him. He wrote “How long do you plan to look for your son.” At this point the physical abuse was nothing as it was in the beginning, yet the psychological abuse was ever present.

Dr. Marylene Cloitre, a New York University psychologist and trauma specialist told 48 HOURS that because Shawn was a child when he was abducted that Shawn would have been especially vulnerable to coercion. "Many people feel damaged and they wonder whether they’ll be seen as damaged. Sort of 'damaged goods' and be accepted again."

Soon after Devlin kidnapped Ben Ownby and the subsequent discover of both boys, Shawn was freed and returned to his home an emotionally scared boy.

Elizabeth Smart’s abductor, Brian Mitchell, was a parental abductor. He kidnapped the children of his first marriage.

Mitchell, at 19 years old, married Karen Minor, 16 years old, and they had two children, Travis and Angela. Mitchell accused Karen of infidelities and drug abuse, subsequently, he obtained custody of their children. Karen later regained legal custody of the children, but Mitchell fled with them to New Hampshire to prevent them from returning to their mother.

After the parental abduction, Mitchell soon remarried to Debbie Mitchell. They both had two children then had two more, together. The marriage soon became toxic. Travis and Angela, the two children Brian Mitchell parentally abducted, were place in foster homes and Mitchell filed for divorce.

Fast-forward to 2002 and Brian Mitchell kidnaps Elizabeth Smart. Without physical abuse he convinces her not only to stay with him and his wife. She walked the streets with them being for money, ate at restaurants, and never cried out for help. Upon her liberation by the police she was extremely concerned about her abductors wellbeing.

Mitchell was successful abducting his own children and it seems he learned manipulation of others, early on. After his second and third marriages the gentle man he portrayed disappeared as he became aggressive and physically violent.

He soon became the self-proclaimed prophet Emmanuel the leader of his own cult; though only with one follower. Dr. Baker reveals in her study that parental alienators use many of the same tactics as cult leaders; making the follower/child dependant on the leader/parent. Dr. Ludwig Lowenstein comments that both ex-cult members and adult victims of parental alienation suffer the same negative affects, such as depression, guilt, lack of trust in themselves and others.

Dr Lowentien, in his book Parental Alienation, also discusses Natascha Kampusch of Austria. Kidnapped by Wolfgang Priklopil at age ten. She lived in an underground, six by ten cell, for eight years. After a period of time her captor allowed her to clean house, work in the garden and even go to the store with him. Yet during this time she never had the strength to overcome the emotional manipulation used to control her. At the age of eighteen, legally and adult, she did escape as Priklopil has his attention elsewhere. Her captor soon committed suicide for fear of arrest and punishment. Natascha has admitted to mourning his death; the death of a man who stole eight years of her life while sexually abusing her.

If strangers, in abductions, are able to manipulate the minds of children to this degree, then how difficult would it be for a child to be manipulated by a parent whom they love and trust; a parent, who is most likely, one of the two people in the child’s world that whom they rely?

Even in the case of Shawn Hornbeck where physical abuse was implemented it can well be compared to parental kidnap/parental alienation as some abductors/alienators use physical coercion as well.

Federal Bureau of Investigation, National Crime Information Center (NCIC), reports that in 1997 the child had experienced physical abuse or harm in 8% of the cases of parental kidnap. University of Maryland found a 24% incidence of physical abuse. Children were sexually abused in 1% of the cases and University of Maryland found a 7% incidence of sexual abuse. With these statistics it reveals physical coercion is used in many cases of parental abduction/alienation. Even with the smaller statistic of 8% the number of parentally abducted children, physically abused, would be approximately 28,000 every year.

Whether these tactics and conclusions are termed Stockholm Syndrome, mind manipulation, brainwashing, alienation or parental interference, it should be obvious that a child would be affected and manipulated more easily by someone whom the child trusted as opposed to a stranger.

As for myself my father began manipulating my mind at two-years-old. His efforts were so successful that at four-years-old, my uncle, my father’s brother, delighted at watching me hide in the freezing snow upon hearing my mother was approaching. Thirty years later, upon finding my mother, I discovered the stories my father told me as a child of her being “demonized”, wanting nothing to do with me and, finally, having died in a mental institution due to drug abuse, were simply lies. Lies he told to control me. My mother’s feelings, rights and wellbeing were of no concern to my father; nor were my own desires and rights as a child. Parental kidnap is one of the worst forms of parental alienation and the abusers care about little more than their own wants and needs.

Parental alienation syndrome is real and affects the alienated children well into adulthood. Whether by physical or psychological tactics, whether by stranger or a parent, the children are turned away and against those normally loved and sought out for safety, emotional strength and daily needs.