Recovered/Located VA - Melody Bannister, 34; 4 child abduction charges+; Stafford Cty; 20 Aug 2019

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imstilla.grandma

imstilla.grandma

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"The investigation began in early June 2019 when a woman identified as Melody Bannister, 34, of Stafford informed deputies that her four children were being abused by a family member," a Stafford County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson said. "A joint investigation with Stafford County law enforcement and Child Protective Services determined the allegations were unfounded. Shortly after the conclusion of the investigation, Bannister left Virginia with the children on a planned vacation and never returned."

"Bannister refused to return the children and subsequently petitioned the courts in Alabama requesting custody be issued to her there," the spokesperson said. "The courts in Alabama heard the case and also ordered Bannister to return her children to their father back in Virginia. Bannister absconded from the state of Alabama with her four children and has not been seen since."

Bannister is currently wanted for one felony charge of Violation of a Court Order, four misdemeanor charges of Abduction, and one misdemeanor charge of Filing a False Police Report.

The children were identified as Genevieve Bannister, 13; Janelle Bannister, 12; Vivienne Bannister, 11; and Peter Bannister, 7.

"The U.S. Marshals Service and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children became involved in the investigation several months ago," the spokesperson continued. "Banister and the children were last seen on August 20 in Moulton, Alabama."

Law enforcement officials are asking anyone with information to contact: 1-877-WANTED2.
Alert issued after Virginia mom, children never returned from vacation: ‘The children may now be in danger’
 
upload_2019-12-14_9-31-43.jpeg
Remaining photos in gallery of below link:

Over the past several months, they have been seen at the following locations:

Birmingham, Alabama – 35201
Moulton, Alabama – 35650
Greenville, South Carolina – 29601
Shell Lake, Wisconsin – 54871
Madison, Wisconsin – 53701
Spooner, Wisconsin – 54801
Maryville, Tennessee – 37801
Knoxville, Tennessee – 37901
Lexington, Kentucky – 40502
Leadville, Colorado – 80429
Raleigh, North Carolina – 27601
Aransas Pass, Texas – 78335
Dallas, Texas – 75201
Corpus Christi, Texas – 78401
U.S. Marshals issue alert after Virginia woman, children never return from vacation
 
I find it odd that this family has been spotted in numerous locations but yet they haven't been found. They must be living in their vehicle. The older children must have been brainwashed to not alert any authorities. If there is no income, she has to be feeding them in the Salvation Army or in local churches.
 
PayrollNerd said:
I find it odd that this family has been spotted in numerous locations but yet they haven't been found. They must be living in their vehicle. The older children must have been brainwashed to not alert any authorities. If there is no income, she has to be feeding them in the Salvation Army or in local churches.
Click to expand...
Melody’s blog claims they’ve been bouncing around from friend to friend. She seems to have a large network of either internet friends from blogging or childhood friends that have spread out.
 
Recent developments in the investigation have led investigators to believe the children may now
be in danger. Law enforcement officials are asking anyone with information to contact:
1-877-WANTED2.

on-the-run.png

U-S Marshals searching for Stafford woman accused of abducting her children - Fredericksburg Today
 
upload_2019-12-14_11-48-43.jpeg
“She threatened me before she left and said if you don’t side with the children, then you’re gonna burn with your dad,” said her husband, Bill Bannister.

Authorities say she’s been spotted from Colorado to Texas to the Carolinas. They believe she is updating her activity with the kids on a blog, writing it wasn’t safe to return because the alleged abusers were not in jail.

“You don’t hear the pitter patter of little feet in the house anymore,” Bill Bannister said. “Nobody’s singing; nobody’s laughing. It’s dark. It’s quiet. It’s lonely.”

Melody Bannister is facing multiple misdemeanors and a felony for not complying with the court order to bring the kids home.

Her attorney told News4 he is preparing a statement.
Authorities Search for Virginia Mother, 4 Kids She Abducted in June
 
Melody Bannister, 34, is wanted in Stafford on a felony charge of violating a court order, filing a false police report and four misdemeanor charges of abduction. The case was featured on the A&E television show “Live-PD” Thursday night.

Police said they aren’t aware of any sightings of Bannister or the children since Aug. 20 in Moulton, Ala., and suspect the children might be in danger.

According to Stafford Sheriff’s spokeswoman Amanda Vicinanzo, Bannister told police in early June that her children, ages 7 through 13, were being sexually abused by their paternal grandfather, who lives not far from the family home in Stafford.

Following a joint investigation by the Sheriff’s Office and Child Protective Services, Vicinanzo said, authorities determined that the complaints were unfounded.

The U.S. Marshals Service and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children have since gotten involved in the search, which led authorities to places in Alabama, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Colorado, North Carolina, Texas and Wisconsin.

Vicinanzo said police believe Bannister may have been assisted by a religious group she belongs to known as Vision World. She said the family pets—a cat and a dog—were left at one of the locations she is believed to have visited.
Search is on for Stafford mother and her four kids
 
Steelslady said:
I'm curious- is she trying to protect her children from the grandfather- the husband's father?
Click to expand...
That’s my impression. This case has the capability to splinter into other issues, dilemmas, causes and tactics.

ETA: I wanna hear more about this religious organization “Vision World” - I can find plenty on “World Vision” but not the other way around.

This is a very old article but it describes a system of surviving the underground beneath the radar:
The network that became known as Children of the Underground once gave these instructions to a runaway mother, People reported in 1989. Family abduction experts widely consider that group and its leader, Faye Yager, as the face of a movement that once helped men and women take their kids into hiding in order to escape partners they alleged were abusive, and whom the courts had granted custody.

Yager formally started helping parents in 1987; in 1992, she told The New York Times that she had helped hide some 2,000 families. Reports have described her network as "a vigilante labyrinth" of "homemakers, ministers and ordinary working people." People magazine called it "the new underground railroad," one that involved nervous pay-phone conversations, Greyhound buses, wigs and pillows stuffed under clothing. Runaways stole names from the birth certificates of deceased people. The network apparently consisted of at least 1,000 safe houses.
The underground networks that hid children decades ago still exist
 
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Finding Bannister and the children has become more urgent after “recent developments in the investigation have led investigators to believe the children may now be in danger,” the Sheriff’s Office’s statement said.

“We’re concerned about the welfare because they are unable to take care of themselves. They don’t have any means to take care of them. Melody doesn’t have means to take care of them,” Wright told host Tom Morris Jr.

Sheriff’s Office spokesman Amanda Vicinanzo said investigators believe Bannister has had help along the way from members of a religious group of which she is purportedly a member, according to the Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg. The newspaper reported that the family’s pets, a white Great Pyrenees dog and white ragdoll cat, were left at one of the stops Bannister has made since leaving Virginia.

“After months on the road, we had to say goodbye to our beloved pets: Our giant, bounding bundle of puppy-faced joy and our fluffy cat, whose soothing whirr often assuaged our soreness of heart,” Bannister wrote on her blog. “It is a comfort to know they are in good, loving hands, since they can no longer be in ours.”

“Live PD” pointed out that Bannister has written about her religion previously, describing it as a “cult.” According to a blog she began in 2016 called Lady Adelaide’s Realm, Bannister grew up in a Quiverfull household.

Followers of the Quiverfull movement believe that the men with the most children will earn the most favor from God. They shun all forms of contraception, believing that it is only God who “opens and closes the womb,” follower Kelly Swanson told NPR in 2009.

According to some of Bannister’s friends -- and a second blog the missing woman appears to have written since going on the run with her children -- the danger toward the children lies not with their mother, but in their father’s home.

‘Will justice triumph over lawlessness this Christmas?’
A Change.org petition begging for help from Virginia and Alabama officials claims that the children’s father “conspired with (Bannister’s) father-in-law to perpetuate some of the most horrifying sexual and physical abuse imaginable upon her children.”

“When local law enforcement failed to protect these children, ordering them back to live with their abuser, Melody chose to live on the wrong side of the law. What else could a truly desperate mother do?” the petition reads.

“The children have spoken of being given strange substances in the barn that made the world swim before their eyes and caused the taunting faces of their abusers to converge together in a dizzying blur,” Bannister wrote.

She wrote on the blog that her only crimes were “believing (her) children when they disclosed a lifetime of ongoing abuse” and “reporting (it) to the Stafford, Virginia, police.”

“A joint investigation with Stafford County law enforcement and Child Protective Services determined the allegations were unfounded,” according to the statement from the Sheriff’s Office. “Shortly after the conclusion of the investigation, Bannister left Virginia with the children on a planned vacation and never returned.”

“We spoke briefly once, when he told me that he had interviewed my husband and would soon interview my father-in-law,” Bannister wrote. “After that, he stopped answering my phone calls.”

“We left home with barely a week’s worth of summer clothes and are practically penniless, living off the kindness of friends who, one by one, have taken us under their wings,” Bannister wrote.

Read Bannister’s entire, five-part blog here. Warning: It includes graphic details of alleged child sex abuse.

Stafford County’s Juvenile, Domestic and Relations Court granted sole custody of the children to their father the following month, Stafford County authorities said. Their father, identified in court records as William Joseph Bannister, filed for divorce last month.

“(Melody) Bannister refused to return the children and subsequently petitioned the courts in Alabama requesting custody be issued to her there,” a Sheriff’s Office spokesperson said. “The courts in Alabama heard the case and also ordered Bannister to return her children to their father back in Virginia.

“We set up residence in Alabama and made it our new home, where we obtained a protective order against the man formerly known as Daddy,” Bannister wrote on her blog. “This was swiftly snatched away when the judge deferred to the Virginia ruling, which ordered me to return the children to him.”

Bannister wrote that a family court hearing was held in Virginia without her presence Aug. 19, with a judge ruling in her husband’s favor. She claimed she was never served with a summons for the hearing.

US marshals issue alert
Aside from Alabama, potential sightings of the family have been reported in Wisconsin, Colorado, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky and Texas. The U.S. Marshals Service and the NCMEC have been involved in the case over the past few months, the Sheriff’s Office said.

A friend of Bannister, Julie Lampkins, shared a story on Facebook about the missing family, saying it was “with a heavy heart” that she shared the link about the mother’s alleged abduction of her children.

“We all have questions, but no answers,” Lampkins wrote. “Help the authorities find her and her (four) kids.”

✔@USMarshalsHQ
U.S. Marshals issue alert after woman, children never return from vacation http://via.fox43.com/zIaKx via @fox43
Virginia mom, 4 children sought after she abducted them amid claims of sex abuse
 
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I admit not reading all the blogs, her writing is a bit overwrought to say the least. I try to never doubt the claims of abuse survivors, but she is making some wild claims that local DFS has debunked. Is it possible she's right? Yes, I suppose so, and if she's even 5% telling the truth I am endlessly sorry for what she's going through and has gone through. If she's lying, she's clearly not mentally competent, and the kids aren't safe.

This is a tough case. I see her leaving the US with the kids and never being seen again since her publicity push has not worked in her favor.
 
Wow, I don't have any idea about what to think about this one. Is she a nutter or is it true? Were physical/sexual assault exams done on the children? I would think that could prove if they had been sexually assaulted.
 
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