Sabrina Allen- Crime Story

Susie tells the story of Sabrina Allen, a girl who was taken by her mother after a custody battle with her father. Despite the father's efforts and the mother being on the FBI's most wanted list, the case remained unsolved for years. Eventually, a teacher in Mexico reported a girl named Blanca who matched Sabrina's description. However, when authorities finally went to the apartment, the mother had already moved out. The father continued his search and eventually remarried, but it wasn't until 11 years later that there was a lead in the case. Hello, so my name is Susie and today I would like to tell you a crime mystery that was solved after many years even though it could and should have ended after only a few months. As you will see what's also frustrating is that up to a certain point this incident was completely preventable. It will be the story of Sabrina Allen and if you'd like to find out what happened in the girl's family I encourage you to listen to this story. Sabrina Allen was born on May 30th in 1997 in Austin, Texas in the United States. Her parents were Della Lawrence and Greg Allen. Sabrina's father was a scientist and worked at a local university. The parents relationship can be described as true love at first sight. They met through a dating agency and immediately knew that they were meant to be together. They married a few months after their first meeting. Unfortunately their wonderful love story did not have a happy ending. Although they still seemed like a matched couple they began to struggle with more and more problems as the years passed. In 2000 when their daughter was three years old they decided to break up. Unfortunately it often happens that the strong feeling between two people turns into a strong mutual dislike or even hatred. It was the case with Mr. and Ms. Allen. During the breakup the couple was unable to find a common language and cooperate even for the good of Sabrina who despite her young age was negatively affected by the changes at home. During the court fight for custody of the child it was determined that Greg would have better opportunities to provide appropriate conditions for his daughter to grow up which is why the custody was awarded to him. As you can guess Dara was disappointed with the outcome of the trial. She wanted her daughter to stay with her and not with her former partner. In her opinion the man was not able to take good care of girl. Her mother was allowed to see Sabrina every week. Dara was not about to give up and did her best to convince everyone around her of Greg's bad character. You can even find reports she filed with TV's and American government agency dealing with child protection that accept reports of abuse and neglect. When Sabrina was four years old she reportedly told agency workers that her father was sometimes aggressive towards her mother. This situation was explained years later. It turned out that the girl's words that her father beat her mother were one of the lies that Dara told her to tell. It was obviously that the woman had turned her against her father during the weekends she had been spending with Sabrina. The girl was at an age when children are very susceptible to manipulation and they perceive parents as the smartest people in the world. Whatever they say is automatically considered the truth and Dara used this fact to her advantage. During the following months the tense relationship between the parents didn't improve. Dara repeatedly used psychological violence against Greg and even told other family members that one day she would take the child and leave. At first these treats were not taken seriously because the woman had a very short-tempered nature and repeatedly said things that later turned out to be just empty words. However Greg knew his wife and what she was capable of. For this reason he decided to tell his lawyer about this treat. However he stated that first of all there had been no evidence that the woman actually had said it and that it had been treated as a simple fight between parents fighting for custody of the child. Over time however it was noticeable that the relationship between parents became much less turbulent and they began to get along better. The biggest change could be observed in the woman's behavior. Dara became gentler and more willing to comply with the obligation arising from the court decision. For example she brought her daughter to her father's house on the time. Greg was very pleasant with these positive changes not anticipating that it was just the calm before the storm. Friday April 19 in 2002 was an ordinary spring day when as usual Greg was supposed to drop off his daughter for a two-day stay with her mother. There was no indication that the routine meeting would go any differently. In the morning he took the girl from the community center where Dara was supposed to pick her up. The unwell father kissed his daughter and went home. The only thing that seemed a bit unusual to him was that Sabrina said goodbye to him. Daddy never forget me. On Sunday at 6 p.m. as usual Greg was waiting for his daughter to return. Dara had been very punctual over the past few weeks so he was surprised that she was so late. Later in the evening when he could not contact with his ex-partner in any way he began to worry. Considering her previous treats he had a very bad feeling. Then he decided to report Dara's future to fulfill his court obligation to the police. Unfortunately the officers couldn't do much. It turned out that the woman and the child were not in her apartment and they found no clues as where they could be. After questioning other family members it turned out that she had not told anyone about her plans to leave and they were also concerned about her absence. Greg knew he couldn't fully rely on the police so he decided to hire a private detective. The detective managed to find out that Sabrina and Dara managed to move to the city of Laredo located in Texas on the border with Mexico. Unfortunately there is where their trail ended. Laredo is approximately 380 kilometers from Austin. Using available surveillance footage and witness testimony it was possible to determine that his ex-wife and daughter almost certainly boarded the bus going to Mexico. Dara had over two days to escape so she could have been anywhere and managed to hide well. Greg decided to retrace their steps himself. He went abroad by the same bus but it was not even known which station they got off at. Moreover it turned out that the lack of knowledge of the Spanish language turned out to be a great difficulty in communicating with the local population. Of course he showed photos of his daughter and ex-wife to passengers by but he was unable to fully explain the situation and understand the answers he received from nonverbal messages according to which no one had probably seen them. The man was very determined when he realized that not knowing Spanish was a big obstacle to finding his daughter he took time off from work and moved temporarily to Mexico City starting an intensive course in this language. While studying he spent every free moment printing leaflets and posting them around the city. Every day he chose a different district so that information about the search for his daughter could be spread throughout Mexico. He knew this search might be difficult because he suspected Dara had changed the baby's appearance. During this time Greg created a website with information about the missing child. There were photos and a description of what happened and anyone who might know anything about Sabrina or Dara's whereabouts was asked to contact the father directly. At that time the five-year-old was officially considered a missing person and her mother was placed on the FBI's list of the most wanted people in the United States. Despite the father's efforts the case stood still for months. In 2003 a year after the daughter's disappearance there was a braido in the case. In one of the local Mexican schools less than 10 miles from the father's place of residence one of the teachers reported an unusual situation. According to him a six-year-old student named Blanca didn't know Spanish at all, didn't know what was happening during classes and during a private conversation with the teacher she confided that she missed her father. The concerned teacher decided to question her and then the girl said that her father lived in Texas and asked for help in finding him. Fortunately the teacher remembered the case of a missing child in the United States who was to be transported to Mexico so he contacted Greg by email. It seemed that the case was close to being solved and the action of rescuing the child from its mother's hand would be extremely simple. Unfortunately the reality turned out to be different. Greg didn't want to act on his own and therefore asked the appropriate services to take over the child. Shortly after receiving the email he reported to the American Embassy in Mexico City and waited for their response which turned out to be disappointing. Embassy staff didn't treat the case with sufficient urgency and took late steps to find the child. Greg had no doubt that Blanca was actually his daughter Sabrina but there was nothing he could do. When the police finally knocked on the door of the apartment it turned out that the woman had already moved out a long time ago. Most likely Dara learned from her daughter about the conversation she had with the teacher which made her know that she had to run away again. When Greg found out that apartment had been vacated he was devastated. He felt like he was literally hours away from finding his daughter and now once again he had lost his chance to get his child back quickly. However he was determined not to let the situation break him. He returned to the language school and continued the actively spread information about the missing six-year-old girl. At that time his school teacher was Mariana who greatly supported him in his fight to get his child back. Eventually the couple became very close and started dating. Over the following years they got married and started a family. Despite the changes in his life Greg had no intention of giving up the first fight of his first child. Going to Mexico brought him many benefits but he didn't forget why he was there. Unfortunately feathery news would appear only 11 years later. In September 2014 a private detective dealing with the case received an anonymous report that directed him to one of the apartments located in the small town of Palopla, Mexico which was located 100 kilometers from the capital of the country. The detective went to the site and began observation. It soon became clear that the report was not false and that he found exactly what he was looking for. Just two weeks later the police entered the apartment and arrested Dalla Lauren and it seemed that there would soon be a happy ending to the case that Greg had been waiting for 12 years but the reality was a bit different. Sabrina was 70 years old at the time and was brought back to the United States with her mother. A meeting with her father was planned soon but it turned out that the teenager didn't want to see her parent. A lot has changed since she lived in Mexico and since when a six-year-old she talked to her teacher and said she missed her dad. Dara did her best to channel her childhood memories and take advantage of Greg not being in child's life. She reportedly described her father as a cruel man and even lied to her daughter that Greg committed suicide and that her parental grandparents were dead. This was all untrue of course. Sabrina's life with her mother was far from ideal. The girl didn't know exactly why but she felt uncomfortable at home and there was an atmosphere of fear and stress there all the time. They moved very often and since the incident in primary school she had been banned from going to school so she had no access to education and no contact with peers. Leaving the house was also very limited. She couldn't do everything that girls her age did growing up. During one of the interviews Greg admitted that Sarah was in a very bad condition especially mentally. For 12 years she was constantly bombarded with negative information about him and his family. He described the conditions in which his daughter lived as a prison in a two-room apartment. In terms of education the girl was also several levels behind her peers. Their father organized a collection for his daughter and provided her with special help from therapists and psychologists to help her overcome the difficulties she was facing with. Additionally as Greg suspected Dara changed both her and her daughter's appearance. She herself underwent several plastic surgeries and her daughter constantly dyed her hair dark brown. Sabrina still didn't want to meet her father. The man felt very hard but he knew that he was telling her to give her time to get used to the new situation including understanding the cry committed by her mother and its true nature. While he was waiting for Sabrina to change her mind about a possible meeting Dara was waiting for the court's verdict. She was accused of violating the law resulting from granting the father custody of the child and kidnapping. At the end of 2015 the woman accepts a plea agreement in exchange of pleading guilty which meant she would receive a lower sentence. Ultimately the verdict was passed in March in 2016. She was then sentenced to six years in prison. Sabrina didn't remember the name she was given at birth because she had been using the name Blanka all her life so going back to her previous name didn't make sense. However she wanted to distance herself to some extent from the past related to her mother's crime so she decided to adopt the name Fer which in the Spanish equivalent of the name Blanka. A few months after finding and returning to the USA Dara decided to meet her father and renew contact with him and as soon as after she turned 18 she even decided to live with him. She established a very good relationship with Greg and his family which created with his wife Mariana. However the man admitted in an interview that after talking to his daughter he noticed that he didn't know her at all. They say that a person's personality is formed by the age of 5 and Sabrina has changed a lot. To his satisfaction however it turned out that the girl had some memories from her early childhood. It seems that she is on her way to coming to terms with her future and starting a new happy life. Dara didn't have to serve the entire six-year prison sentence and is currently free on parole. The woman is still trying to present the story of the kidnapping in a horrible way saying that she escaped because of the violence committed against her and her daughter by her former partner and that it was the only way out of this situation. However there is no evidence that she is telling the truth and it is most likely just another attempt to manipulate and convince the justice system. One of the conditions for her early release from prison was that she was banned from contacting or approaching her daughter and she could not even stay in the same state as Sabrina. And this is the end of this crime story. Although it had a happy ending it's impossible not to notice how frustrating it was that there were many moments when this development could have been prevented. For example if Dara's treats had been taken seriously at the very beginning or later if the embassy and the police had finally responded quickly to the report Greg. It's hard to imagine what the man must have felt for the next 11 years after knowing that he was so close to his daughter and that he could have her back just a year after the abduction. Of course I am aware of the fact that the whole story was presented from the father's perspective and there were certainly reasons that pushed the mother to such behavior. However they should not justify violating the court's judgment which probably took into account the arguments presented by both parties when issuing the ruling. Accepting a parent's arbitrary decision about where the child should live and with whom he or she can have contact may lead to harming the child and depriving him or her of contact with the family and friend environment. Perhaps it would be good if causes for future parents were introduced in which the level of parents awareness would be raised and they would be taught that no benefit from a parent conflict and it is always the child who loses the most. I hope you like this crime mystery and let me know what you think about this incident and what your feelings are. And now thank you for watching and bye!