Cops nab mom accused of kidnapping son; boy found OK in Naperville
BY BILL BIRD wbird@stmedianetwork.com March 11, 2013 8:10PM
Christina F. Stark, 32, of Calumet, Mich., is being held without bond in Will County Jail in Joliet. Stark allegedly kidnapped her 11-year-old son last November. Stark, who also uses the name Christina F. Gagnon, was arrested over the weekend by Bolingbrook police, with the boy found safe in a Naperville motel.
Updated: April 14, 2013 6:16AM
An 11-year-old boy from Michigan who was allegedly kidnapped last Thanksgiving by his mother following a custody dispute was found safe over the weekend in a motel on Naperville’s northeast side.
The boy’s mother, Christina F. Stark, is being held without bond in Will County Jail in Joliet, following her arrest by Bolingbrook police.
Stark — who also uses her married name, Christina F. Gagnon — is 32 years old and lives in Calumet, Mich. She is wanted there on charges that include parental kidnapping and uttering and publishing and forgery of checks, according to Sgt. Jason Wickstrom, of the Calumet Post of Michigan State Police.
Stark’s boyfriend surrendered in January to Michigan authorities. Raymond Ojala Jr., 30, of Hubbell, Mich., turned himself in at the Houghton County, Mich., Jail on a felony warrant for aiding and abetting in kidnapping/custodial interference, Wickstrom said.
Ojala and Stark were last seen about 9:30 p.m. Thanksgiving Day, when police investigated a report of a family disturbance, Wickstrom said. The pair fled with Stark’s son, whom police quickly designated “a missing/endangered child,” he said.
Wickstrom said Ojala, Stark and her son subsequently stayed with a friend of Stark’s in Green Bay, Wis. “The reason we knew that is because Ojala told us that, and he provided us with a couple of phone numbers ... we located on several occasions down in the Bolingbrook area,” Wickstrom said.
Bolingbrook police were contacted Saturday night. Police Lt. Mike Rompa said his officers were asked to look for Stark at or near the Springhill Suites of Bolingbrook, located at 125 Remington Blvd. “All of the surrounding parking lots were checked, as well as hotels, with negative results,” Rompa said early Monday night.
Police later that evening found Stark inside a red Ford Fusion parked in the lot of the Denny’s restaurant at 126 Frontage Road. Rompa said the car had been reported stolen in Wisconsin.
“Stark was charged with possession of a stolen motor vehicle and with the outstanding kidnapping warrant out of Michigan,” Rompa said. Police also learned she had “no parental rights as determined by Michigan courts,” and had “two active warrants which were extraditable anywhere in the U.S. for fraud,” he said.
A written Naperville police report indicated officers were contacted by Bolingbrook police following Stark’s arrest.
Naperville police about 7:09 p.m. Saturday went to a motel on the 1300 block of East Ogden Avenue and found a boy in a room there, the report read in part. Wickstrom confirmed the motel in question was the Days Inn of Naperville.
A judge in Michigan awarded full custody of the boy to his father, Stark’s ex-husband, following the alleged kidnapping, Wickstrom said. He added the boy was on his way back home Monday night.
Calumet is on Michigan’s upper peninsula and roughly 440 miles due north of Naperville.
