Christina Brock on The Lam for Abducting Her Own Kids

It is not often that a writer can tastefully mix the sobering topic of child abduction with that of criminal stupidity, but this is such a case. On Monday, September 21, 2009, Christina Brock was supposed to turn her three kids over to become wards of the State of Florida. Brock may well have loved her kids, Ceili Rudy, Darion Brock and Rainah Rudy, but apparently loved hard drugs even more. She pleaded no contest to possession of methamphetamine in 2007, and is to be arraigned in October for charges of possession of cocaine. She is also a suspect in several other criminal investigations. helpfindmissingkids.com. Small wonder that the state could conclude she was an unfit mother.

I’m not sure what was going through Brock’s mind on the morning of September 21, though logic did not appear to be a factor. Did she believe that if she laid low for awhile, the state would give up on their custody case, and the police would lose interest in prosecuting her for cocaine possession? Or did she think she could live her life as a fugitive indefinitely? Whatever the case, on that Monday morning she packed the kids into her SUV and, with the help of a friend, stashed the kids in a home in Leesburg. The Volusia County Sheriff’s Office was soon on Brock’s case, sending a warning to local police agencies.

The kids had been missing for nearly a week when Brock, enlisting the help of her friend Stephanie Newberry, cooked up the scheme so half-witted that it would immediately  break the case wide open. They concluded that if the SUV were a different color it would lessen the possibility of its getting pulled over. So the pair drove to a Wal-Mart in Ocala where Brock bought some spray paint. Brock stayed inside the store while Newberry began to spray blue paint on the vehicle outside the back of the store. Neither evidently thought that a police patrolman behind the SUV might be intrigued by the sloppy paint job and run the license plate, which Brock could not change. As it happened, things never progressed that far.

Wall-Mart security men began to wonder why Newberry was giving the SUV a hasty spray paint job in their parking lot. One of them read the license plate, finding it listed on  a  copy of the warning notice sent to the Ocala police, who had distributed it to area businesses. The security guards then summoned the police. Brock could see the heat building up and fled from the store. Orlando Sentinel, 9/28/09.

Newberry spilled the beans, telling the police where the three kids were stashed. In view of her cooperation, the police did not charge her with anything. The children were recovered the same day.

Meanwhile, the Volusia County.Sheriff’s Department continues to search for Christina Brock, who now has a warrant for interference with child custody.

So the story has a bittersweet ending, because Brock’s three children face an uncertain future. But things could have turned out worse had it not been for the diligence of the Wal-Mart guards.