Interracial Pregnancy Led To Kidnapping, Teen Says



I wish I could say this surprises me, but it doesn't. I'm just glad the daughter got away and the parents were apprehended. If you have to break the law and try to force someone -- especially your own daughter -- to do something they don't want to do, just because you have a prejudice, then something is terribly wrong and you deserve the fullest prosecution of the law.

Best Wishes,
Allen

The Associated Press
Published: Sep 20, 2006

SALEM, N.H. - A Maine couple accused of tying up their 19-year-old daughter, throwing her in their car and driving her out of state to get an abortion were upset because the baby's father is black, a Maine sheriff said Tuesday.

Katelyn Kampf, who is white, told Cumberland County Sheriff Mark Dion that her mother "was pretty irate at the fact that the child's father was black, and she had made a number of disparaging remarks about that," he said.

Kampf escaped Friday at a Salem shopping center and called police, who arrested her parents, Nicholas Kampf, 54, and Lola Kampf, 53, both real estate developers from North Yarmouth, Maine.

The Kampfs were apparently taking their daughter to New York to try to force her to get an abortion there, police said.

The parents were arraigned Monday on kidnapping charges. The judge set bail at $100,000 each and ordered the Kampfs to have no contact with their daughter. They posted bail Tuesday afternoon.

If convicted of kidnapping, the Kampfs face 7 1/2 to 15 years in prison. Dion said he expects to bring charges in Maine also, after investigators consult with the district attorney today.

Defense attorney Mark Sisti said Tuesday that a sworn statement by police who interviewed Katelyn Kampf and her parents said nothing about the race of the baby's father.

Katelyn Kampf escaped from her parents after persuading them to untie her so she could use a Kmart bathroom, police said. She used her father's cell phone, which she had taken, to call 911.

The boyfriend, Reme Johnson, 22, last week began serving a six-month sentence for theft at the Androscoggin County Jail in Auburn, Maine.

Johnson also has previous felony convictions for burglary and for receiving stolen property, the Portland Press Herald reported.

Source: TBO.com: Interracial Pregnancy Led To Kidnapping, Teen Says