A California judge will decide today whether Marvin Maple, now known as John Bunting, will be sent back to Tennessee to face kidnapping charges for taking two of his grandchildren from their parents back in 1989. Maple and his late wife had been caring for two of their daughter Debbie's kids while her husband was pursuing a divinity degree out of state. They had sought custody of the children -- at the time, ages seven and eight -- alleging abuse by the parents. When a court found no evidence of abuse, the grandparents took the children and fled, moving to California and renaming the children (formerly Bobby and Christie) Jonathan and Jennifer Bunting.
Now in their twenties, Jennifer and Jonathan Bunting have not spoken to the press about their situation, but it's expected they will meet with their parents and two additional siblings at some point. It's not yet clear what kind of brainwashing Maple carried out when he removed the children from their parents, but it seems likely there was some.
The case, which had languished in the Rutherford County Sheriff's Office Cold Case Unit, was broken thanks to someone's affection for old, corny television shows. Late in December, a tipster who was watching an old episode of Unsolved Mysteries that mentioned the missing Baskin kids and reported seeing them in the San Diego area in around 2000. Detective Sgt. Dan Goodwin in Tennessee contacted newspapers in the San Diego area and asked them to run stories soliciting sightings and encouraging the public to contact Tennessee authorities. Eventually this led to a email from San Jose, where a neighbor of Maple's had seen the coverage and wanted to right a long-past wrong.
Back when the Baskin children were taken from their parents, there was a national hysteria over abuse, with dozens of false abuse charges -- many involving allegations of Satanic rituals -- clogging the courts. In addition, there was a growing movement of grandparents' rights, in which children were often used as a pawn in power struggles between two generations of adults with different ideas about how kids should be raised. Seen in this context, it's not that surprising that the Baskin case happened -- but it's a wonderful surprise that it was solved. It may take years and tons of counseling to help this family heal from what happened to it, but that process can now begin.
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