Canadian mom and son back together after father allegedly kidnapped him 31 years ago
A Canadian mom is relieved now that her long-lost son has been found 31 years after his disappearance, thanks to technology that helped capture the man who allegedly kidnapped the baby and escaped to America and lived on the lam under fake names.
Allan Mann Jr. was the ex of Lyneth Mann-Lewis and stole their 21-month-old son, Jermaine Allan Mann, on June 24, 1987, during a visit to Canada, the BBC reports.
Mann Jr fled to the US with the boy and Mann-Lewis spent her life looking for her son Jermaine. But soon the trail ran cold and no trace of the two could be found. That’s because Mann Jr had obtained falsified documents – which would ultimately seal his fate.
On Friday, in Vernon, a suburb of Hartford, Mann Jr. was arrested and was living under the pseudonym “Hailee Randolph DeSouza,” investigators said.
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Facial recognition technology helped to identify 66-year-old Mann Jr’s true identity, said Det. Sgt. Wayne Banks, of the Toronto Police Fugitive Squad, at a news conference Monday in Toronto.
The mother, Mann-Lewis was beside herself with excitement after learning that her son was actually still alive.
“Words couldn’t express what I felt,” she said. “The words ‘Your son is alive, we found him’ – that is breathtaking.”
“I wanted to see if he was real. I said ‘Oh my God, my baby,’” she said.
Sadly, Jermaine thought his mother was dead all this time.
Police had received over 200 tips from the public and conducted at least 300 to 400 interviews in their quest to locate the lost boy.
When Mann-Lewis was asked if she had any words for her son’s captor, she replied: “I just thought it was sad for him to have done what he did. You never take a child from its parent, no matter what.”
On Friday, Jermaine attended his dad’s initial court appearance.
“And since his son is a victim in this case, we can’t disclose any information about him,” Department of Justice spokesman Thomas Carson said on Monday.
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