MYSTERY

Feds: Pastor an Accomplice in Kidnapping

Child at the center of civil-union law debate.

A Tennessee pastor has been arrested for aiding the kidnapping of a young girl who was at the center of a custody battle between her mothers—a case that set off an epic battle about civil-union laws before one woman allegedly ran off with the child. The two mothers were in a civil union until one, Lisa Miller, became an evangelical Christian and denounced her former partner’s continued “homosexual lifestyle.” A Vermont court granted primary custody to Miller, the girl's biological mother and a newly religious Baptist, but gave Janet Jenkins generous visiting rights, which Miller then refused to honor, claiming that as a resident of Virginia—which does not recognize civil unions—she did not have obey Vermont law. According to an FBI affidavit, Miller’s pastor, Timothy David Miller (no relation), in 2009 arranged for Miller and the child to stay in Nicaragua at a beach house owned by a conservative businessman with ties to Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University. The pastor was arrested last week in Virginia and is scheduled to appear in court in Vermont on Monday, and there's no word yet on the search for Miller and her daughter.