PARENTING

Adoption Fight Over Guatemalan Child

Biological mother says girl was kidnapped, sent to U.S.

Timothy and Jennifer Monahan of Kansas City, Mo., are fighting to keep their 6-year-old adopted Guatemalan child after the girl’s biological mother said that her daughter was kidnapped in 2006. The Guatemalan mother, Loyda Rodríguez Morales, says she was walking into her building with her children behind her when she saw her daughter was missing: witnesses report seeing a woman take her and bring her into a taxi. The Monahans, however, insist that they legally adopted the girl, Anyelí Liseth Hernández Rodríguez, and that they plan to fight for custody. Morales, for her part, is not angry with the Monahans. "I don't know if they knew she was stolen. All I would like to say to them is that they return my little girl,” she said. A Guatemalan court recently said if Rodríguez is not returned within two months, Interpol will be asked to intervene.