Surveillance Adventure

My sister-in-law Kim and I drove up to Idaho on Sunday and then back to Utah. It was quite the long trip - 12 hours straight in a car! Fun, fun!

We were playing private detectives, complete with the big sunglasses, hats, binoculars, and camera. Kim has a little boy named Cadian that just turned seven - on Sunday actually. When Cadian was about 4, Kim and her husband were in the process of getting a divorce and settling custody in court and her husband he took off with her little boy, disconnected all his phone numbers and left no address. I'm sure that your first thought will be - as mine was - just call the cops. Sadly, the cops claim that they can't do anything in this situation. Because there was no custody arrangement, neither one of them legally had custody and thus no kidnapping charges can be filed. So, Kim has not seen her son for almost three years. She paid a lawyer money that was supposedly going to a private detective to track him down but not only didn't the lawyer find Jake, but he didn't write up any of the papers that needed to be filed with the courts to make it so that Kim would win custody by default if Jake didn't show up to court which would then make it so that kidnapping charges can be filed.

I took it upon myself to track Jake down. How hard could it be after all? Isn't that what the internet is for - to find stuff about people that they don't want you to know? I'm proud - and also extremely mad at the lawyer for taking money from her and obviously not doing anything for it! - to say that I found a potential address for him after about two hours and $50 worth of background checks and address searches. So, we drove up to Idaho to see if we could tell if Jake and Cadian lived there or not.

It was about a four and a half hour drive up there. I actually quite enjoyed the trip. I got to talk to Alex's sister more than I ever have in the whole twelve years that I've been married to Alex! Kim actually lives with us and - as sad as it is to say - I really don't know her. I always kind of wondered why she wasn't turning the earth upside down looking for her son and I now understand her frustration - that the situation is basically left up to lawyers and cops, neither of which seem to care too much! We got to our destination and really "lucked out" I have to say. We seriously could have been on our surveillance operation all day without being any better off than we were before. However, we drove by the house once then twice and I just happened to mention that it was too bad that there wasn't a name on the mailbox. Then Kim exclaimed, "That's his mailbox! He lives here." It was definately a very distinct red mailbox painted with bright orange flames on both sides and apparantly he had a habit of taking it with him wherever he moves. We were about to drive by the house again and by some miracle Jake and Cadian came outside. Luckily, we had time to inconspicuously turn the car around before driving right by them because although we wanted to know where Jake was, we definately didn't want him to know that we had found him. So Kim got to see her little boy for the briefest of moments! They left shortly after and we headed back to Utah, having accomplished what we meant to - to determine if this was a valid address.

Although, I know that Kim was disappointed. I'm sure she had in her mind that she was somehow going to get Cadian alone and grab him - after all if they won't arrest Jake for kidnapping then they couldn't arrest her either. That would have definately made our trip more exciting - maybe a little more exciting than I was comfortable with! But for now, we have to settle on knowing where he is, strategizing what to do next and coming up with the money to pay the lawyer (definately another lawyer!) to hopefully do something!