Long story short… my sister is running from state to state with her kids to avoid a custody case. We have a court order that says police and child services can help return my nieces to their grandmother in Montana for safety until an official hearing. The judge suggested we try to involve SVU, but since we haven’t been able to serve my sister with the custody order, police won’t act because it’s not legally active until she’s served.
Tomorrow, we’re asking the court for an ex parte emergency order, hoping this will let the police step in since there are serious safety concerns. If we get it, are there any other obstacles we should prepare for to avoid more delays? Will this order let the police search for the kids as missing? Do we need to do anything specific to get police to track her phone location?
We have a lawyer, and we’ve involved police from multiple states and child services, but legal red tape is just giving my sister more time to keep the kids hidden. Any advice beyond ‘call the police’ or ‘call child services’ would be really appreciated.
States involved:
Montana (where the case is filed)
New York (where she goes often)
Pennsylvania (where she was released from on special parole)
I’m a family law attorney, but not your attorney—talk to your lawyer.
You might need to check if you can register your court order in other states. I’m not sure if that applies to a temporary order, but if you could, it would give authorities in those states the legal backing to act. Right now, police in other states aren’t required to enforce an order from Montana unless they choose to.
You’ve probably looked into this already, but has the biological dad reported parental kidnapping? If the police take it as a criminal case, they might be able to coordinate with officers in other states even without her being served yet.
@Sofia
Police in one of the states said the order does allow them to take the kids from her if she shows up. Multiple states are willing to help, but only if we find her first or she turns herself in.
What do you mean by ‘register the order’ in another state? There’s one state where that might help, but I couldn’t get clear info on how to do it.
Would an ex parte order help open a missing persons case?
Edit: Both bio dads are in prison. One is somewhat involved but seems to be listening to my sister and not talking to anyone else.
@Jory
If you want a court in another state to enforce a judgment from Montana, you can sometimes ‘register’ it there. You take the order to a court in that state and ask them to accept it as a valid legal judgment. This makes it easier for police in that state to act. This works for final judgments, but I’m not sure if it applies to temporary orders.
Brice said:
Have you tried a process server? It’s not free, but they might work with a private investigator to track her down and serve her.
We didn’t use a process server, but we hired a private investigator to do a skip trace. They couldn’t confirm anything because she’s using fake names and constantly moving.
Even when we got tips about her location, we couldn’t verify them in time.
@Jory
You might need a better PI. Have you asked the court if you qualify for service by publication? Montana only allows it in certain cases, but if she truly can’t be found, that’s usually an option.
@Brice
We checked, but our lawyer said it takes three weeks, and my sister never stays in one place that long. I even looked into ways to track her phone, but all I found were sketchy phishing sites.
@Jory
We have a case open with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, but since there’s no missing persons report yet, nothing has really moved forward.
@Brice
The PI we hired works nationwide and was already in one of the areas she was seen. Would a national process server be able to do more than the PI? We’re willing to spend more if it helps, but we don’t want to waste money on dead ends.