Inka Johnson, a Salt Lake woman who has become caught up in the "Baby Richard" custody dispute in Illinois, will join representatives this week from at least 24 other states in protesting an Illinois State Court decision in the child custody case.
The Utah woman, who has three children including a 4-year-old boy, said she became deeply concerned aboutthe child custody dispute. She will leave Salt Lake City early Sunday to join in a rally in HOffman Estates, a Chicago suburb."I cried for several days after seeing the sobbing child being token from his adoptive family and turned over to his biological parents, who he had never met," Johnson said Saturday evening.
Baby Richard is a 4-year-old Illinois youngster who was taken from his adoptive family with whom he was placed soon after birth. He was born March 16, 1991, to a woman who sent word to his biological father that the child was dead. She then relinquished the infant for adoption. Last January, the Illinois State Supreme Court granted custody to the biological father, ruling the adoption was illegal because he (the father) had been told the child was dead.
When the child was two months old, the father learned that he was alive and sought to have the adoption nullified. The U.S. Supreme Court has twice refused the case.
Sen. Charles Stewart, R-Provo, said he sponsored SB101 in the 1995 Legislature. He said this bill should hopefully prevent similar cases from occurring in Utah.