The authorities and family of a missing 11-year-old from Metro Detroit said Friday the boy is now in FBI custody in South Dakota after being located with his father at a pheasant hunting ranch.
Connor Grabowski-Cracchiolo was located at the River Hills Lodge in Platte, S.D., one day after the FBI filed paperwork against the boy’s father, Mark Grabowski, in federal court in Michigan saying the Hartland Township man was planning to flee the United States and move to Costa Rica.
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Grabowski, 53, was taken into custody Friday by authorities without incident on a parental kidnapping warrant issued out of Livingston County. Authorities said Friday afternoon that Grabowski had been moved to Sioux Falls, S.D., for extradition back to Michigan.
Grabowski and his son had gone missing more than a week ago.
Livingston County Sheriff Bob Bezotte said he was notified by the FBI on Friday that Connor was in the process of returning to his mother, Kelly Evans, 45, of Richmond.
“I’m the happiest person on Earth,” Evans told The Detroit News moments after hearing her son was found. “It’s been hell. It has been the worst thing that I could ever go through in my life.”
Evans, who last saw her son Aug. 19, said she and Grabowski have battled in court over the shared custody of their son since his birth.
Connor’s maternal grandmother, Carol Markus, tearfully expressed her gratitude for the news coverage, which she believes led to Connor being located.
“We’re overwhelmed, it’s unbelievable,” she said. “It’s been such an unimaginable nightmare that this family has gone through. We are thanking the Lord for bringing him home to us. Our prayers have been answered.”
Federal court records Thursday shed further light on the hunt for Grabowski, a former defensive lineman who had been in training camp with the Detroit Lions in the early 1980s, and Connor.
The FBI learned Grabowski had planned to leave the United States and establish a new life in Costa Rica, according to an affidavit written by FBI Special Agent Robert Schmitz.
The affidavit was attached to a criminal complaint, which is related to his son’s disappearance, filed late Thursday in federal court charging Grabowski with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.
Jean Grabowski, Connor’s grandmother and Mark Grabowski’s mother, said Friday that she has no idea where her son was but has been informed that he’s in custody.
“He did what he thought was the best thing for his son,” she told The News. “He’s protecting his son. Now they are in trouble.”
Grabowski wasn’t at his Hartland Township home last week and neither was his son when Evans went to pick the boy up, authorities said. Evans and Grabowski were never married, according to Evans’ family.
On Thursday, a YouTube video was posted that showed Connor saying he hadn’t been kidnapped.
“I’m fine. I was not kidnapped. I came on my own will. The reason I came is because I just wanted to get away from my old life and start a new one,” the YouTube video shows Connor saying.
Bezotte said Friday Connor seemed unnatural in the video, which led him to believe that his father told him to appear in the video.
“We believe he was coached and coerced,” Bezotte said. On the video, Connor asked to go to a location, which he never mentions, for his birthday, which was Aug. 24.
Markus said Friday she also believed Grabowski forced Connor to make the YouTube video.
“I can’t believe he is doing this to this little boy,” Markus said. “I’m kind of partial, but it looks scripted.”
Authorities had thought Grabowski could have been in any of a half-dozen states.
Grabowski has two other known residences in Acadia, Mich., and Cameron, Mont., and authorities have contacted sheriff’s offices in Montana and in nearby areas of Idaho, Bezotte said.
“He’s been talking a lot to people about Connor’s mom, but he hasn’t been going through the court system,” Bezotte said.
Evans contacted authorities Aug. 30 after no one answered the door at Grabowski’s home on Jeni Lane in Hartland Township, and calls to his cellphone showed it was out of service. When Evans contacted authorities, she was advised to wait 24 hours before filing a missing persons report.
“It was so frustrating,” Evans said Thursday. “It was probably the plan to do it over the holiday weekend.”
There was another red flag in the days before Connor disappeared. He was set to begin fifth grade at Richmond Middle School in Macomb County but didn’t receive a school schedule. When Evans spoke to school officials, she said they told her they expected Connor to attend Oxford Community Schools in Oakland County.
Under a joint-custody agreement, Connor spends summers with his father and the school year with his mother.
