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Faith

Former Lesbian-Turned-Evangelical Christian ‘Kidnaps’ Daughter, Vanishes Amid Custody Battle

Jun. 27, 2011 11:54am Billy Hallowell

Lisa Miller (left) and Janet Jenkins (right)

MONTPELIER, Vt. (The Blaze/AP) — Lisa Miller’s path from lesbian in committed relationship to international fugitive started in 2003.

She broke up with her partner, Janet Jenkins, renounced homosexuality and became an evangelical Christian before disappearing in 2009 with the daughter she had with Jenkins.

Now, what started as a custody battle over little Isabella Miller-Jenkins has turned into a global manhunt, with indications that Mennonite pastors and other faith-based supporters may have helped hide the two in Nicaragua and are now coming to the aid of one who the FBI says helped Miller.

Eager to keep the girl away from Jenkins and what they consider a dangerous and immoral lifestyle, they liken their roles to that of underground helpers aiding runaway slaves.

“God’s Holy Law never recognizes a gay marriage,” said Pablo Yoder, a Mennonite pastor in Nicaragua, in an email message to The Associated Press. “Thus, the Nicaraguan Brotherhood felt it right and good to help Lisa not only free herself from the so called civil marriage and lesbian lifestyle, but especially to protect her nine year old daughter from being abducted and handed over to an active lesbian and a whole-hearted activist.”

As the gay marriage movement gains momentum in the U.S. with impending legal recognition of the relationships in New York state, the case is a reminder of the opposition that same-sex couples and their families can face.

The saga began in 2000, when Miller and Jenkins were joined in a civil union in Vermont. Two years later, Miller gave birth to the girl, through artificial insemination. The couple split in 2003, with Miller renouncing her homosexuality and becoming a Baptist, then a Mennonite.

Miller was originally granted custody of the girl, but her defiance of visitation schedules led courts in Vermont and Virginia to rule in favor of Jenkins, culminating in a judge’s 2009 decision to award custody to Jenkins.

After Miller and the girl failed to show for a court-ordered custody swap on Jan. 1, 2010, to hand the girl over to Jenkins, the hunt was on. A federal arrest warrant was issued for Miller, and her daughter’s name was added to the missing by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

But they were long gone: In 2009, two months before the judge ordered the custody change, Miller and the girl flew to Central America and took up residence for an unknown amount of time in Nicaragua before vanishing again.

So says the FBI, which revealed in April that it had arrested Nicaraguan missionary Timothy David “Timo” Miller and charged him with abetting an international kidnapping by helping arrange travel and lodging for the two. He is awaiting trial.

According to the FBI, Timo Miller — no relation to Lisa Miller — arranged to fly Miller and her daughter from Canada to Augusto C. Sandino International Airport in Managua.

He’d never met her until they arrived at the airport, according to Loyal Martin, a friend of Timo Miller’s.

Timo Miller has pleaded not guilty and is free on $25,000 bail, awaiting trial. His attorney, federal public defender Steven Barth, won’t discuss the case. Another lawyer for Timo Miller, Jeffrey Conrad, of Lancaster, Pa., didn’t respond to a request for comment.

“Tim believes there is a higher law than the laws of any country that all people, including himself, are accountable to,” said Martin, 40, of Philadelphia, N.Y., who attended Miller’s first court appearance.

In an April 1 affidavit outlining the charge against Timo Miller, FBI agent Dana Kaegel noted the involvement of various religious groups and people involved — in some fashion — with Miller.

At a minimum, she appears to have had the support in the Mennonite community outside the capital of Managua.

Yoder, who works the remote village of Waslala, 161 miles from Managua, told The Associated Press she celebrated her daughter’s birthday in his house last year. He wouldn’t say more.

“She came here to have a good time, and we allowed her to celebrate her daughter’s birthday in my house because of the love we have for the girl,” Pablo Yoder said.

Yoder, who is mentioned in the FBI’s affidavit over an email exchange with Timo Miller planning the party, told the AP in an interview he couldn’t remember how long she stayed. She slept at the house of another pastor, according to Yoder, who would not name that person for fear it would lead to questioning by police.

Members of the church made a pact not to reveal any details to protect Timothy David Miller.

“We want to remain silent because we do not know whether it would cause him problems,” Yoder said. “The moment may arrive when we are going to want to talk, when we deem it necessary to tell Nicaragua the true story.”

Nicaraguan police haven’t questioned Yoder and other members of his church, he said in an interview last month.

“They know we are not involved in this matter,” said Yoder, who likens the help given to Lisa Miller to aid given by Mennonites and Quakers to the aid abolitionists gave runaway slaves.

Richard Huber, of Myerstown, Pa., a friend of Timo Miller’s who agreed to assume custody of him after his first court appearance, sees Timo Miller’s actions as faith-based.

“Choosing to heed God’s law over man’s would be an accurate way of putting it,” he said in an email message.

Miller may have gotten help from others drawn to her predicament for religious reasons.

The lawyer for Miller’s ex-partner, Janet Jenkins, told the FBI she got a call in June 2010 from someone — she won’t say who — who told her that Lisa Miller and the girl had stayed in a beach house in coastal San Juan del Sur, about 68 miles south of Managua.

The house is owned by Philip Zodhiates, the father of Liberty University law school administrative assistant Victoria Hyden, according to the FBI. Jenkins’ attorney, Sarah Star, told the FBI that the caller told her Zodhiates had asked his daughter to put out a request for supplies for Lisa Miller.

Located in Lynchburg, Va., Liberty University was founded by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell. An affiliate of the university, conservative Christian law firm Liberty Counsel, formerly represented Miller in her court case in Vermont over custody of the girl.

Law school dean Mathew Staver — who leads Liberty Counsel — has said Zodhiates isn’t affiliated with either. Watch Liberty Counsel radio host Matt Barber comment on this case, below:

“From our perspective, she just dropped off the face of the Earth. We haven’t heard from her or from anyone who said they’ve heard from her,” Staver said of Lisa Miller.

Miller, 42, is wanted by the FBI and Interpol, which recently requested the help of Nicaraguan police in the search. U.S. Embassy officials in Nicaragua said they don’t know where she is.

“We have clues, but we do not want to reveal them so as not to hinder our investigation,” Fernando Borge, spokesman for the Nicaraguan national police, told the AP last month. “We can’t say either, at the moment, whether she is or is not in the country.”

A security guard at the hotel Royal Chateau in San Juan del Sur, Juan Garcia, told the AP last month he remembered seeing Miller and her daughter seated along the waterfront.

Back in Vermont, Jenkins waits for word on their whereabouts, a break in the case — or both.

“It is hard to understand how anyone could consider a childhood on the run better and more stable than one surrounded by family, with two parents and two sets of grandparents who can provide love and support,” Jenkins, who declined to be interviewed for this story, said in an email.

Timo Miller, meanwhile, awaits trial on the abetting count, which could send him to prison for three years. For now, he and his wife and their four children are staying in Pennsylvania, with Huber.

Supporters have rallied to Timo Miller’s his side. At his April 25 court appearance in federal court in Burlington, Vt., dozens of supporters turned out.

More than $30,000 has been raised for his legal defense fund, and donors have provided he and his family with a minivan and an apartment, according to www.timomiller.org, the Timothy Miller Family Support Network’s website.

“When Isabella was about 18 months old, Lisa Miller realized the emptiness of her lesbian lifestyle, and her mother’s instinct alerted her to the danger that lifestyle posed for her young daughter. She chose to leave that lifestyle, repented of her immoral ways, and began a new life,” according to the website.

Star calls Miller’s actions kidnapping. She doesn’t buy the idea of civil disobedience.

“My understanding is that civil disobedience is an act of defiance against a government. Janet Jenkins is not the government, she is a mother who is worried sick about her daughter.”

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Comments (259)

Bret
Posted on June 27, 2011 at 8:47pm
They are done playing house, and there is a reason why nature did not give them their child…

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Via Dolorosa
Posted on June 27, 2011 at 8:20pm
Sounds to me like a biological mother trying to protect her biological daughter from a sinful lifestyle – from someone who appears to be in it to make a political point.

The daughter should remain with her biological parent/mother – not a sexual partner – and that sexual partner should have no rights to the child. It’s not like she helped raise the daughter.

Case closed per God’s Holy Word.

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- encinom
  Posted on June 27, 2011 at 8:33pm
  Yeah, God’s Holy Word is not valid in a court of law, what is valid is the laws of the State of Vermont. Vermont trumps God in court.
  
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BonnieBlueFlag
Posted on June 27, 2011 at 8:11pm
The common law has always been that a child born inside a marriage is considered the legal child of both spouses (even if they are not biologically the father’s e.g. infidelity) However, this common law has been changed since dna paternity tests have come around. Biological fathers now have rights that they never had before this technology so in my mind it makes the old common law null and void.

Unfortunately Ms. Miller has no legal or practical way to find the identity of the anonymous donor (the actual biological father.) The biological father could sue for parental rights and the New England ***** would lose the case and be SOL. I suppose if Ms. Miller had a friend in law enforcement they could try to run the child’s DNA through CODIS to try and find a familial match. That’s how they recently caught a serial killer in California I believe- because of the son’s DNA being logged for a petty crime.

Also, this is why marriage should remain legally defined as one man and one woman. It’s biological, natural, historical, ethical and our common laws are based around it. Trying to reverse hundreds of years of common law leads to chaos.

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- encinom
  Posted on June 27, 2011 at 8:38pm
  “However, this common law has been changed since dna paternity tests have come around. Biological fathers now have rights that they never had before this technology so in my mind it makes the old common law null and void. ”
  
  The Common Law has not change, a child born inside of a marriage is still considered a product of the marriage, its a rebuttal presumtion, unless 1) the mother identifies a different father or 2) the husband can prove to a court he is not the father.
  
  Also, in hetero-marriages, this also happens, one parent flees with a child to deny another visitation. i can not see how you can make the arguement that this is uncommon, unless you are so blinded by your bigotry and religion you can not see straight.
  
  Report this comment
- BonnieBlueFlag
  Posted on June 27, 2011 at 9:13pm
  @Encinom
  
  Yes, I’m a bigot alright. I have an crazy bigotted predelection for our time- honored traditions like juries, the Roman alphabet, the Bible and traditional nuclear families (one man, one woman and hopefullly lots of children.) How insane of me to believe in an enduring culture, instead of one which sets itself ablaze every generation- torching all remnants of the past in favor of whatever group-think cult dogma is the latest craze. Yes indeed. I’m just effed in the head and you are brilliant. Do you what Jim Jones preached in his Peoples’ Temple? The same relativist, pinko guano you spew daily. That is what comes of a culture which is invented instead of inherited.
  
  Report this comment
GryWlf49
Posted on June 27, 2011 at 8:08pm
Amazing how the FBI, Interpol, and National Center for Missing and Exploited Children will go to the ends of the earth (literally) for this abducted child, but will not go to Houston, TX to retrieve the daughter of an Air Force officer stationed in Charleston, SC. And, he knows within a block where the child is being held.

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packa14
Posted on June 27, 2011 at 8:01pm
how do 2 queers have a baby, it is anatomically not possible??

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Supercalafragalisticexpialidotious
Posted on June 27, 2011 at 7:57pm
Biologically speaking…Jenkins is not the mother. She has no physical relation to that girl. Much more importantly than that, she apparently hasn’t seen the girl since the child was one year old. To hand the child over now, at nine (ten?) years of age, would be to steal her away from the only mother she has known, the only emotional connection, family connection, she has. I think most anyone would agree that is a statement of fact, right?

Jenkins…I have to wonder, since it isn’t her child in a biological sense, and she hasn’t seen her since she was 1 year of age…I don’t know. There could still be an emotional attachment there, but I bet the activist in her has the upper hand in her decision making. Because that little girl, I guarantee, has absolutely no memory of Jenkins.

My hope is that Miller can stay hidden until her daughter hits age 18, and can then vouch for herself.

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Phattdad144
Posted on June 27, 2011 at 7:55pm
Mob boss hides in CA in a rent controlled apartment. Take the FBI 16 years to find him. They know more about this lady and her kid in two years. Must be hard to track down the mob in CA.

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Crucial411
Posted on June 27, 2011 at 7:45pm
How many souls does the devil claim every time he turns people away from God. Really an easier number to count is the number of those God saves from his wrath when the devil turns people against Him. Let’s see. Sodom and Gomorrah? Thousands to the devil oh yea and ONE saved for God! Noah and the flood? Millions to the devil and Oh yea ONE family saved for God. Numbers like this should speak for themselves as once again the devil tries to take America and turn it into another Sodom and Gomorrah. Who is the ONE that God chooses to save and will you be counted among the millions the devil gets this time around? Just a thought!

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mathewsaddict
Posted on June 27, 2011 at 7:20pm
Something is terribly wrong with our court system when they decide to take a little girl away from her real mother and give her to a woman who has no biological tie to her whatsoever. These decisions would be unthinkable even in the case of a traditional marriage. As someone who has had the privilege of knowing lisa, I can say that if there was any attempt of kidnapping here, it was on the part of the courts.

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Juergensen
Posted on June 27, 2011 at 7:10pm
Sodomites and dykes are minions of Satan.

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Juergensen
Posted on June 27, 2011 at 7:09pm
Lisa Miller did the right thing in saving her daughter from that filthy lesbian and her Satanic lifestyle.

We all need will the courage of Ms. Miller to protect our families and especially our children from the coming attack of the sodomites and dykes.

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Rumrunner3
Posted on June 27, 2011 at 7:05pm
Its has been said that it is a blow to the male ego when a spouse or girlfriend turns lesbian. What does it say for a lesbian that goes straight.

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Brian3163
Posted on June 27, 2011 at 6:55pm
Aside from the fact that Homosexuality is an Abomination before god, there is the biological concerns. According to the article, Miller is the biological mother. SHe was inseminated, SHe carried the child to term, She gave birth. Why would the judge give custody to the person who had absolutly no biological ties to the child? Just because she loved the child?

This is where it goes from here. Anyone can love a child and get custody of the child from the biological parents. Lets say a Nanny has been with the child since birth, and gets fired. Now, based on the judges ruling, the Nanny can file for and receive custody of the child.

How stupid can judges be?

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Virginia Rebel
Posted on June 27, 2011 at 6:36pm
Jenkins is NOT a mother. She never even adopted the child as is required for a same-sex partner to be considered a legal parent. The court is just using this case for judicial activism. It is a prime example of why “gay marriages” should not be allowed. They leave little room for people to repent of their ways and try to make things right in their lives and in the lives of innocent children who get unwittingly dragged into these messes. I whole heartedly support Lisa Miller and anyone who helps her right the wrongs in her life and protect her child. Timo Miller may or may not have done so, but anyone who wishes to help him can go to http://www.timomiller.org/index.htm to donate toward his defense.

Lisa, we’re still praying for you and Isabella as you do what any good mother would do, including animal mothers. It is a mother’s job to protect her young, and you understand that perfectly. I have no doubt in my mind that God is on your side.

Glenn Beck: You’ve not been real clear how you stand on “gay marriage,” and this article seems to waffle a little. Hard to tell which angle it comes from. I’m a long-time fan and have supported you on most of your stands. I wear a “Stand With Israel” bracelet even as I type this. But if you come out clearly supporting “gay marriage,” you will do so without me; might even be a relationship breaker. I’d hate to lose you my life, but my relationship with God is more important, and I have no doubt where He stands.

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konakolina
Posted on June 27, 2011 at 6:12pm
Miller had the baby so it’s her child. Jenkins is like the live in boyfriend and as far as I know no live in boyfriend has been given custody of a child. As the bio father was a donor Miller is the parent. Marriage between gays was not recognised at the time the child was born so I really don’t see where Jenkins has any legal claim to the child. Miller gave birth to her ergo she’s Miller’s child. It’s time for the ex live in to move on. And really doesn’t our law enforcement have better, and dare I say more important, things to do than search for a mother who by all accounts is taking good care of her child. Why not use our limited resources on more important things like catching criminals. The only reason this is a hot case is because a lesbian is involved thus it’s politically correct to make a big deal over it.

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- Supercalafragalisticexpialidotious
  Posted on June 27, 2011 at 8:03pm
  Gay marriage was not recognized at the time? This is just weird, then. That just pushes me closer to the opinion that this is entirely politically motivated on Jenkins’ part. If she can get a legal ruling that she has a legitimate claim to the child, she has made a huge step forward in legitimizing gay marriage.
  
  At this point, it could be that simple for her.
  
  Report this comment
- encinom
  Posted on June 27, 2011 at 8:31pm
  Vermont recongized Civil Unions, which gave the partners the same rights as married couples. Facts people, they matter.
  
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lynchman
Posted on June 27, 2011 at 6:08pm
Jennine
Your post is absolutely correct. .

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OneofMany
Posted on June 27, 2011 at 6:07pm
She’s the biological mother. Case Closed. Also on another note… God’s law (Biblical) trumps man’s laws all day and all night.
————————————–
Also I loved this post:

ISRAELISOURFRIEND
Posted on June 27, 2011 at 12:45pm

Atheists mock Christians because they say, “your hope is delusional, it’s pie in the sky”.

They know a lot of facts about weird things, but they don’t the know real thing about anything.

Atheism has never dreamed a dream.
Atheism has never lifted a burden.
Atheism has never solved a problem.
Atheism has never healed a broken heart.
Atheism has never brought joy to a wounded soul.

You’re intellectual argument for everything is “I doubt that”. A moron can learn that in three seconds!

What do you believe? What can you defend?

Atheists spend their lives fighting a God they don’t believe in. How brain dead is that?

Corinthians 1:21 “The world through wisdom did not know God”. Why? What does that mean? That means you can study things but never the the right things, and man may know about rocks but never know the rock of ages.

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- encinom
  Posted on June 27, 2011 at 9:37pm
  In a court of law, God’s law doesn’t even make into the doorway, here Vermont law trumps. Here its Vermont that defines what is and is not a marraige, and what parental rights the partners have.
  
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Mary Just
Posted on June 27, 2011 at 5:54pm
Isn’t this a queer situation

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STEELGUY
Posted on June 27, 2011 at 5:43pm
Yes timo is american. Pablo is married to an american they arrest pablo when he got of the plane when he came to visit his inlaws

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ChuckJ
Posted on June 27, 2011 at 5:29pm
So the govt is now taking away a woman’s child? What’s next the step-dad getting custody of a woman’s child when they divorce?

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Git-R-Done
Posted on June 27, 2011 at 4:56pm
Jenkins has no right to that kid since it’s not even biologically hers. It takes a man and a woman to create a child.

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eternalwolf777
Posted on June 27, 2011 at 4:51pm
@DimmuBorgir
Well said…. Well said!

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valettie
Posted on June 27, 2011 at 4:39pm
Good for her, hope she doesn’t get caught. But if real MOM tried to not break the law, she would have had to subject her daughter to those evil gay ways her gayEX, n the child would of grown up thinking she might consider marrying a woman as it would feel normal, if she didN’t get her away from that sickness. Those evil spirits

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capecodsully
Posted on June 27, 2011 at 4:27pm
The child’s biological mother entered into a legally binding agreement with another person, it doesn’t matter if it is a man or woman. She can explain her change of lifestyle to her child but the other woman is legally a parent as well. She is teaching her child that you can be irresponsible and run from your problems. This child is an American citizen and her mother is hiding her out God knows where, not a good parent in my Christian opinion.

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jim
Posted on June 27, 2011 at 4:26pm
I feel an Oprah made for TV movie coming on…

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