She was featured in a Netflix show as an ‘Unsolved Mystery’, featuring cases related to family abduction. However, less than a year after her appearance in the show, the 15-year-old Illinois was found alive in North Carolina on May 18.
Kayla, who was allegedly kidnapped by her mother six years ago was spotted by a person, who called police, recognising the girl from ‘published media,’ as per a report by the Guardian. “I’m overjoyed that Kayla is home safe,” Ryan Iskerka, the child’s father, said in a statement issued by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. “We ask for privacy as we get to know each other again and navigate this new beginning.”
What Was the Case?
The 9-year-old child was last seen in 2017 after a Fourth of July parade, while her mother was tying their possessions to the car’s top, as per a report by Washington Post.
According to family members, Heather Unbehaun and her daughter, Kayla Unbehaun, then left the parade site in a Chicago suburb for a camping trip in Wisconsin. The next day, they had a court-ordered parenting handoff with Kayla’s father.
But the couple never showed up, sparking a six-year search for Kayla, which ended Saturday when an employee at a thrift store in Asheville, N.C., spotted her with her mother and alerted authorities.
“It was discovered that all of Heather’s social media had been cancelled and her phone had been turned off,” Iskerka explained on a GoFundMe page, after filing a missing person report.
Unbehaun had missed a court date a few weeks before. “Her lawyer hadn’t spoken to her in days, was unaware of what had occurred, and was very concerned,” Iskerka explained.
According to NBC Chicago, prosecutors in Kane County, Illinois, obtained an arrest warrant for Unbehaun immediately after she and Kayla went missing.
The disappearance was among numerous purported family abduction instances covered in an episode of Unsolved Mysteries in November of last year.
What Will Happen to Kayla and Her Mother Now?
After the mother, who only had visitation rights at the time, ran off with their daughter, the sad father missed critical moments in Kayla’s life and was never able to give his daughter a birthday present.
Ryan decided to write letters to Kayla in order to express how much he missed her every day.
He had uploaded the letter on the website of the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children, along with digital images of how his daughter would look now, in an attempt to raise notice of her absence, according to a Mirror report.
“I hope you enjoyed your birthday and I want you to know that I love you so much and so does the rest of your family. We all miss you so much and think about you every day. I want you to know that your absence has by far been the most difficult trial of my life.
(Image: Twitter @Findourmissing_)
When I found out you were gone my heart was shattered into a million pieces. Luckily I have the love and support of God and our family so I have managed to make it. But there is nothing I want more than to have you back in my life. We all want you back in our lives. I think about you all day, every day. I pray for you and your mother every day hoping that you are safe and that you will return into my life soon. There are also so many other people praying for you.”
Unbehaun was apprehended by Asheville police on Saturday and was scheduled to be extradited to Illinois. According to NBC, it was unknown whether she had a lawyer.
Kayla was in the custody of North Carolina social services and was scheduled to be reunited with her family in Illinois, NBC said.
Family Abductions
Family abduction occurs when a kid is “taken, wrongfully retained, or concealed by a parent or other family member depriving another individual of custody or visitation rights,” according to the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children, as per a report by the Guardian.
In 2020 in the US, almost 5% of the nearly 30,000 instances reported to the centre were family abductions. In the same year, claimed family abductions accounted for more than 60% of amber alerts, which are emergency communications sent to assist locate missing people, usually children.
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