A 2-year-old boy allegedly abducted by his father when he was 17 days old has been reunited with his mother after a passer-by spotted him hiding in the back seat of a parked car, officials said.
The child's father, who was arrested along with two other men, took the boy after his wife fled a religious cult to which they belonged, authorities said.The boy's mother, 25-year-old Mary Lou Weinzetl, wept as she described her ordeal Tuesday at a news conference.
"I thought I'd never see him again," she said as the boy, Brendan Broderick, munched fistfuls of candy from a paper cup. She said she lives in the Chicago area but would not disclose her hometown.
The child's father, Brian Broderick, 27, allegedly ran off with Brendan in August 1987 after Weinzetl fled the group, which FBI investigators call a cult. Authorities said the group is known as the Holiness Tabernacle Church or Holy Alamo Christian Church in Alma, Ark.
Weinzetl's daughter from an earlier marriage, Jackie, now 3, was returned to her by Broderick five months after she left the group. But she says he refused to let her see Brendan and soon went into hiding with him.
After two years of searching, Weinzetl got a call at her Illinois home telling her Brendan had been found.
On Aug. 3, a woman told police of two men who appeared to be living in a car with a small child in Manhattan. When the men, and a third who claimed to be the boy's father, did not produce identification for themselves or for the child, they were arrested for allegedly endangering the welfare of a child, prosecutors said.
Broderick had been sought on a felony charge of custodial interference in Arkansas.