Cover Story Extra: Healing Through Comfort
Two family survivors of child abductions that ended in tragedy are connected by 'invisible thread.'
By Denise Gee Peacock
For those fortunate enough to witness it, one of the Symposium’s most moving moments came in the guise of a small package—one that guest speaker Pamela Foster quietly handed to AATTAP CART Project Coordinator Derek VanLuchene.
Both share a unique bond: Foster is the mother of Ashlynne Mike, who was abducted and murdered on the Navajo Nation in New Mexico when she was 11. And VanLuchene is the brother of Ryan VanLuchene, abducted at age 8 (in the presence of Derek, then 17) and later found murdered not far from his home in rural Montana. Like Ashlynne, Ryan was sexually assaulted before being killed. “The trauma of knowing that can be unbearable,” Foster says.
Foster and VanLuchene first met in 2019 at a Montana training conference with the Blackfeet Nation. “That’s when I heard his story,” she says. “I had no idea he and I were going through such similar emotions. And since then, our talks have given me such comfort.”
Around the time of their meeting, Foster was trying her hand at designing and sewing textile art.
“Quilting gave me an outlet to disappear from the world,” she says. “I started giving the quilts to others I’d befriended who were also going through grief.”
But she kept thinking of VanLuchene. What could she create for a former police officer “who’d pretty much seen it all—but also was a gentle soul,” a sibling-survivor of a violent crime? “I wanted to give him something from my heart—especially because he’s doing such good work to help others find missing children,” she says.
She pondered the possibilities until last fall, when she learned VanLuchene’s beloved dog, Herschel, had died.
“That’s when the image came to me. I worked up the courage to design a quilt showing Ryan and Herschel together.” Whenever she found time, she worked on the gift, but only finished it the night before leaving her Southern California home to fly to New Orleans.
VanLuchene was deeply moved by the gesture. “What a special gift,” he says. “Herschel and I always shared a special connection. It was devastating when he passed this last October. In so many ways he was my comfort dog. So it gives me great peace to see him comforting my brother, Ryan, near the water, which they both loved.”
Derek VanLuchene has given the quilt pride of place in his home office. Pamela Foster is happy to know he will look at it often there. “I hope each time he sees it he’ll know just how much love it holds for him,” she says.
Front Lines: It Takes a Village
After her parents were murdered, a missing infant is found safe thanks to Mexico’s media, the public, and AMBER Alert Coordinators—who acted while a conference on protecting children was in play with U.S. DOJ and AATTAP leaders in Monterrey
By Rebecca Sherman
On the morning of August 29, 2023, as AMBER Alert Coordinators from northern Mexico gathered in a Monterrey hotel ballroom for a three-day child protection training conference with top U.S. officials, a real-life child abduction
emergency was unfolding behind the scenes.
Hours earlier, and some 230 miles away, 15-month-old Angela Chávez had been taken from her home in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, by armed criminals during a home invasion that left her parents and another adult dead.
Angela was discovered missing by her distraught grandmother, who arrived at the home with local authorities after the murders. Realizing the infant was in grave danger, officials immediately notified Yubia Yumiko Ayala Narváez, Regional Coordinator of the Gender-Based Violence Unit of the Regional de la Fiscalia del Estado de Chihuahua, or Chihuahua North Prosecutor’s Office. But like many of her colleagues in Mexico, Narváez was at the conference, organized by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development, Assistance and Training (OPDAT) team (based in Mexico City’s U.S. Embassy) and attended by leaders of the AMBER Alert Training & Technical Assistance Program (AATTAP).
Even while at the event, Narváez discreetly sprang into action, issuing a regional Alerta Amber, Mexico’s version of a U.S. AMBER Alert. Posters of Angela—a cherubic girl with large brown eyes—were circulated on social media, and alerts buzzed on cellphones throughout the region.
Narváez also briefed fellow conference attendee Carlos Morales Rojas on the situation. As Alerta Amber National Coordination Liaison, Rojas works with Mexico’s 32 state AMBER Alert Coordinators while based in the Special Prosecutor’s Office for Crimes of Violence Against Women and Human Trafficking for the Fiscalía General de la República (FGR), or Office of the Attorney General.
Amid intense and hushed conversations, Narváez and Rojas exchanged information on the abduction during the conference presentations taking place. “Given the seriousness and urgency of the case, we knew we had to work quickly to activate the (national) AMBER Alert, but we also maintained a certain confidentiality of the information,” Rojas recalls.
The effort to rescue baby Angela quickly became a real-time case study that had officials drawing from a deep well of collective experience and training. “That allowed us to disseminate the alert with urgency, encouraging the media to reach as many people as possible,” Rojas says.
Several hours after the first alert was issued—and still with no sign of baby Angela—Rojas elevated the alert to the national level, an expanded presence that would no doubt heighten public awareness of the child’s case. Then, once the national AMBER Alert was activated, Rojas and Narváez informed conference attendees about the developing situation.
Fortuitously, the room was filled with experts on missing and endangered children who collaborated to ensure a swift response in the emerging case. They included: AATTAP Administrator Janell Rasmussen; Yesenia “Jesi” Leon Baron, AATTAP’s Project Coordinator of International and Territorial Programs (including the Southern Border Initiative) and Certification Manager for Child Abduction Response Team (CART) training initiatives; and top officials with the U.S. State Department and U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, including Gigi Scoles, Gabriela Betance, Flor Reyes, and Oswaldo Casillas.
“All of them facilitated our work, allowing us to carry it out right there at the conference,” Rojas says.
Media and public response came swiftly. Kidnappers, likely aware the case was receiving national attention, abandoned Angela in a doorway in Ciudad Juarez. A woman spotted the infant and promptly called 911, helping authorities to safely recover her 30 hours after the first AMBER Alert was issued.
“Those who took baby Angela definitely felt pressure due to the wide dissemination of the AMBER Alert,” Rojas says. “They knew that many people were looking for her.”
With Angela’s rescue occurring on August 31—the last day of the OPDAT conference—Narváez and Rojas were offered the opportunity to present what had just unfolded as a successful case study, “one that was the result of excellent coordination between Mexican authorities and the public,” Rojas says.
“With the conference focused on sharing AMBER Alert success stories, the case of baby Angela was significant. Training is the most important aspect of our work; that’s why we constantly share our experiences.”
AMBER Alerts, along with media reports and the public’s help in searching for a missing child, are powerful tools in the effort to recover endangered missing children, as conference attendees witnessed in real time. “Without the support of our citizens, our work would essentially be futile,” Rojas says. “We would simply be spectators of what happens.”
