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Questions Start As Mom's Search Ends

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The Associated Press

Published: August 1, 2008

GUATEMALA CITY - For 14 months, Ana Escobar studied the tiny fingers of every passing baby, searching for a girl with pinkies that curved gracefully outward, just like those of her missing daughter.

Then one day she saw her, in the arms of a foster mother helping process her adoption by an Indiana couple: A straight-haired toddler who appeared to be a stranger, except for her unmistakable fingers.

"I was in shock. I could not move. I could not do anything," Escobar said.
DNA tests eventually proved what Escobar already knew: The girl was her daughter, taken at gunpoint in March 2007, when she was just 6 months old.

Esther Sulamita is the first stolen Guatemalan baby found through a challenge of the mother-and-child DNA test results that are supposed to guarantee the legitimacy of each adoption.

She likely won't be the last. Jorge Meng, spokesman for the attorney general's office, said officials suspect more cases will be found because the lawyers in Esther's case have vouched for documents in dozens of other pending adoptions, as well as many more involving children now growing up as Americans.

Authorities issued arrest warrants for a doctor, two lawyers and two others in Esther's case.

Authorities suspect they could find more than a dozen other stolen babies in their review of 2,286 pending U.S. adoptions.

Even some completed adoptions are being questioned: At least two are under investigation to determine if the children - now American citizens - were stolen, said Jaime Tecu, a former prosecutor who is leading the Guatemalan National Adoption Council's review.

"After this, we are ordering DNA tests for all children whose mothers present credible indications that they were abducted, and we are asking parents of those two babies in the U.S. to voluntarily submit DNA tests of their adoptive children," said Elizabeth Hernandez, council president.

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