Mother Trying to Reconnect with Child Taken by Father to Another State

My question involves a child custody case from the State of: Oklahoma and Colorado

A mother, and close friend of mine from Denver, CO, badly desires to reconnect with her son who was taken from her several years ago...for anonymity I will call her Nicole. There is a lot going on with this situation, and I don't have all of the details, but I will do my best to explain it as concisely as possible.

Nicole's son is presently around the age of 7-8 years old. After his birth, Nicole and Alex's father did not get along anymore. The details of this are very unclear to me, this all happened before I had met Nicole, and it has been difficult to discuss all of it in detail with her. But in the end, a member of the father's family picked up Alex (for some routine activity), but never brought him back. Alex was taken out of state to the father and/or his family in Oklahoma (please note, I am not even sure Oklahoma is the correct state or not, but I am hoping this won't greatly affect the answers to my questions I have below).

Nicole had two kids at an early age in her life and had a difficult life while growing up. Unfortunately this had the effect of causing Nicole to become a meth user for a period of time. In addition with growing depression and income problems, Nicole even became homeless eventually in Denver (I am not sure if she was homeless at the time Alex was taken or not). Nicole said she attempted to report Alex being taken to the police, but they ignored her (probably due to her condition).

As Nicole's parents took care of her daughter, Nicole entered a very deep depression after her son was taken from her. She spent the next 5 or so years living on and off the streets of Denver.

I can't defend or comment on her actions back then, but I do believe that people can better themselves and learn from their mistakes. I had met her when she was still homeless (I was in fact homeless myself at the time). She got tired of living in her situation and I believe that her daughter's love finally brought Nicole around to want to do better for herself. She has been free of meth for three years and we have both been off of the streets for nearly two years now, we both have jobs, and she has been doing better about seeking the help she needs.

Although she is doing better, it sometimes seems like it's only a little bit. She still gets extremely depressed over her son Alex, and with how much time has gone by, she isn't even sure how to proceed. I know she has attempted to talk to members of the father's family over Facebook, but I think that usually goes very poorly and they don't tell her anything. She feels she can't even be sure if he is alive or not. We have his name and social security number, and that is about it. As far as I know, this situation has never made it to any courts and nothing has been determined over custody or anything.

There might still be some time needed before Nicole is ready to take full custody of Alex back, but it would definitely help a lot to getting her there if she could just have a little bit of peace of mind. If she could know if he is alive, how he is doing, and even a visit I don't think is too much to ask! I've felt tempted to contact the father's family myself just to see what they would say about it, but I'm not sure that would be the best decision in this circumstance.

So finally now that I described the story, Nicole and I would be so very grateful for some advice! First, assuming she still has rights to him as her mother, how can we find out where Alex is currently at and if he is alive? If something had been filed with the courts where they have tried to take full custody of Alex, is there a way we can look this up or research it? And finally if we find him, where and how should we proceed from there to getting Nicole a chance to at least visit Alex, and maybe even some custody?

Thank you for taking your time to read this.

Honestly? She hasn't got a chance in hell of getting custody at this point.

She does however have the right to file for visitation and to pay child support.

She needs to find Dad and the child because other than that, she's stuck. The court won't help her to find him. She also - and I don't like being the bearer of bad news here - needs to find out whether or not she still has parental rights. It's possible that her rights were terminated for abandonment.

All in all, she needs an attorney - desperately.

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Quoting atomictimeclock

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My question involves a child custody case from the State of: Oklahoma and Colorado
So finally now that I described the story, Nicole and I would be so very grateful for some advice! First, assuming she still has rights to him as her mother, how can we find out where Alex is currently at and if he is alive? If something had been filed with the courts where they have tried to take full custody of Alex, is there a way we can look this up or research it? And finally if we find him, where and how should we proceed from there to getting Nicole a chance to at least visit Alex, and maybe even some custody?

Thank you for taking your time to read this.

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I agree that given this background she’d certainly not win custody of Alex. She’s a recovering meth addict who had been homeless and has been out of her son’s life for at least five years. While she’s not using drugs now, apparently, and has a job, it doesn’t sound like she yet reached a real stable point in her life that would enable her to take on the very heavy burden of caring for a young child. Alex would need time to get to know and she’d need to be able to show she could handle it. Assuming her parental rights have not been terminated due to abandonment or neglect she does have a right to get visitation with her son, though I expect that visitations would initially be short and would be supervised. Any supervised visits like that would occur wherever Alex is living, meaning she’d have to travel there to do the visitations.

Her initial problem, however, is that to do anything she first must find out where Alex is living. Any action for visitation would have to be brought where Alex now resides. Depending on her computer skills, how common Alex and his father’s names are, and just what Alex and his father have been doing, she might be able to track them down herself. But if she cannot do that, she may need a private investigator to track them down for her. That wouldn’t be cheap. His relatives, even if they agree to talk to her at all, aren’t obligated to help her find them. She might check to see if legal aid or some group that advocates for the rights of parents might be willing to help her out here if she doesn’t have the money to pursue this on her own. She should be aware that she may end up on the hook for child support payments, too.

Note that the police didn’t do anything when the father took the child years ago because without a court order that specified she had custody the father was within his rights to take his son wherever he wished. As the father had not violated any law or court order, there was nothing the cops could do.

A child that age is enrolled in school somewhere. I don't know about every state, but in Tennessee, a parent has a right to all educational records, which means if I didn't know where my son was living, I could still attempt to access his school records which would include an address. It's a long shot, but all you need is the internet to begin that kind of search.

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Quoting Mom521

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A child that age is enrolled in school somewhere. I don't know about every state, but in Tennessee, a parent has a right to all educational records, which means if I didn't know where my son was living, I could still attempt to access his school records which would include an address. It's a long shot, but all you need is the internet to begin that kind of search.

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Are you going to call every school in the country?