When the child disappeared without a trace, the police had no doubts about who was behind the kidnapping. Only the girl’s real, biological parents could have done this. But years of surveillance and searches of the suspects yielded no results.
Careful attention helped…We’re in the United States. In 2019, a New York state court ruled that spouses Kirk Schultis Jr. and Kimberly Cooper lost their parental rights. Their two young daughters were being placed in the custody of their maternal grandmother. It was she who initiated the lawsuit.
The 50-year-old woman accused her daughter and her son-in-law of improper parenting and childcare. As it turned out, the father earned two suspended sentences: for trafficking synthetic drugs and fraud. Both parents dabbled in various illegal substances. In addition, they worked nights at the construction site, where they took their young daughters in the absence of a nanny.
Importantly, they did not use violence against the children. Simply, they were poorly cared for, according to the juvenile services.The examination confirmed the girls’ mental and emotional developmental delays, which was the deciding factor for placing the children in foster (guardian) care.
The biological parents did not accept it. They openly declared that they would return their children by any means necessary.On July 13, 2019, the youngest of the girls, 4-year-old Paisley Schultis, disappeared without a trace whilewalking in the yard of her grandmother’s private home.
Her older 6-year-old sister was elsewhere that day, nothing happened to her.Police immediately suspected the biological parents. Especially since video cameras recorded the car of her father, Kirk Shultis, Jr. on the day of Paisley’s disappearance near his mother-in-law’s house, even though he lived almost 300 kilometers away.
The parents’ home was searched. Police searched their home twice more within a year. But they found no trace of the child.The mother and father were placed under surveillance. They continued to live the same life as before, working at night at a construction site.
Investigators noticed that the couple came to the house of their paternal grandfather, Kirk Shultis Sr. quite often. Sometimes they stay there for weeks.At first glance there is nothing unusual – they visit the old man. But a survey of neighbors showed that this had never happened before.
The son and daughter-in-law were infrequent visitors here before they were disbarred.On February 14, 2022, two and a half years after Paisley Shultis disappeared, police entered her grandfather’s home with a search warrant. The moment the couple once again arrived at her father and father-in-law’s house.
Law enforcement officers were met by father and son. Kirk Sr. and Kirk Jr. were relatively quiet and did not try to interfere.The search lasted four hours. They looked through all the visits in the house and found the children’s room.
The grandfather explained that his granddaughters used to live here when they visited him. Although he has long been deprived of the opportunity to see the girls, he decided to keep their bedroom.
But the investigator, who led the task force, understood – something was wrong here.The girl’s mother, Kimberly Cooper, must be in the house. Outdoor surveillance showed that she arrived with her husband, entered her father-in-law’s house, and did not leave it. Which means she is hiding in some hidden hideout inside.
It got to the point where the investigator himself started pounding the walls and floors. And personally discovered a secret passage in the most unexpected place – right in the staircase leading to the attic floor.Inside the tiny room, the mother and child were lying there in their arms. Alive and well. The little girl did not make a sound during the four hours of the search. She didn’t want to be found, either.
The men and the mother were arrested. The girl was picked up by juvenile services and soon returned to her foster family. It was officially announced that Paisley was happy to meet her grandmother and older sister again.
The kidnappers were awaiting trial. Unexpectedly, Shultis Sr. escaped punishment. The grandfather of the abducted girl insisted that he did not know that his son and daughter-in-law had set up a secret hiding place in his house and were keeping the child there. No one believed the whitewashed version, but they could not prove anything.
The girl herself could not testify. Because of her age and her ties to the kidnappers. All she knew was that she did not complain about anything and took life without the possibility of going out as a kind of game. She spent her time in the children’s bedroom and hid in a secret room every time strangers appeared in her grandfather’s house.
It’s hard to know what the parents were hoping for. In two and a half years, they couldn’t raise their daughter normally. At the time of her discovery, Paisley was in her seventh year — time for school. How long were they going to hide her in the secret room?
The parents kept quiet in court. The sentence gave them probation. It was lucky that they were not tried for kidnapping, but for the less serious charges of violating the legal rights of a guardian and endangering the welfare of a child.
The parents kept silent in court. The verdict handed them suspended sentences. It was lucky that they were not tried for kidnapping, but under less serious articles – violation of the legal rights of the guardian and endangering the well-being of the child.
But from now on, they are strictly forbidden to approach their children or their guardian, to contact them directly (only through their attorneys), or to gather any information about them, including through third parties.
But something tells me this story will continue…