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| In this undated photo released by Chariton County Sheriff's office, Rachel Koechner and her 4-year-old daughter Zoee Sandner are shown. The central Missouri woman who has been missing with her daughter for four days called her boyfriend from a suburban Kansas City motel but was gone when police arrived to check on her. Authorities say they're believed to be with Koechner's former husband and are considered endangered because of previous domestic violence incidents. |
KANSAS CITY, Mo.
(AP) -- To law enforcement agencies, the disappearance of a Missouri
woman and her young daughter for four days had all the markings of an
abduction: a cryptic text message asking for help, a phone call that
sounded like it was being read from a script, an ex-husband with a
history of domestic violence.
Instead, Rachel
Koechner told investigators Monday night that she slipped away with
Devon Sandner, the ex-husband who's the father of her 4-year-old
daughter, last week as part of a plan she devised a day before they took
off. Koechner, Sandner and their child were found Monday in a home in
Linn County about 100 miles northeast of Kansas City after someone saw
them getting gas in nearby Brookfield and called police.
"Her
family has such a strong hatred for her ex-husband, and his family has a
strong hatred for her. They just wanted to be together," said Chariton
County Sheriff Chris Hughes, whose department is leading the case.
Koechner was staying at her mother's house in Rothville in northern Chariton County when she disappeared.
Hughes
said she left Thursday with Sandner and their daughter. They spent most
of the time they were missing at a low-rate suburban Kansas City motel,
where Koechner, 28, and Sandner, 37, smoked synthetic marijuana and
laid low while law enforcement agencies frantically searched for them.
Empty wrappers that had contained the artificial pot were found in
Sandner's vehicle, and it appeared the couple had smoked the substance
with their daughter nearby, the sheriff said.
Koechner's
sister, Brandi Koechner, said family members are relieved that the
mother and daughter have been found safe, but they're stunned by Rachel
Koechner's actions - especially after a nasty divorce that was finalized
in November.
"The whole family is pretty much
confused, hurt, upset, but glad we got the little girl back," Brandi
Koechner said. "We don't understand any of it."
She
said 4-year-old Zoee Sandner is now staying with Koechner's mother and
other relatives in Rothville, and that the family is planning to seek
custody of the girl.
The family doesn't
necessarily hate Sandner, she said, but there was a great deal of
animosity because of what Rachel Koechner went through during her
relationship with him. She also said the family felt that Sandner had
the ability to manipulate his ex-wife.
"They've
had such an on-and-off again, bad relationship," Brandi Koechner said.
"He knew how to get into her head. All of us were really scared because
we've seen what he can do."
Sandner, of
Brookfield, was charged in January in Livingston County with
third-degree domestic assault after his new girlfriend told police he
had struck her in the face at a Chillicothe motel. He pleaded guilty in
2007 to third-degree domestic assault involving a different woman and
was given a 60-day suspended sentence.
Hughes
said Sandner isn't expected to be charged in connection with Koechner's
disappearance, but was being held Tuesday in Chariton County Jail on
five forgery charges from a Linn County case. Prosecutors allege he
wrote five bad checks on the account of another man last August.
Koechner
hadn't been charged by midday Tuesday, but was being held without bond
in the Chariton County Jail pending charges. Hughes expected her to at
least be charged with making a false report.
Neither
Sandner nor Koechner had acquired an attorney, and Hughes declined an
Associated Press reporter's request to interview either of them at the
jail.
Media coverage Monday of what was then
being described as a possible abduction forced Koechner, Sandner and
their daughter to leave the motel in the Kansas City suburb of Blue
Springs early, even though they had paid for another night in advance,
the sheriff said.
"He said, `I saw my picture on the news yesterday morning and I started freaking out,'" Hughes said of Sandner.
Rachel
Koechner called her boyfriend around 9 a.m. Monday to tell him she was
OK and to have the search called off. The boyfriend, whose name has not
been released, told Hughes the conversation sounded scripted.
Hughes
tracked the phone number to the Blue Springs motel, which he called
just as Koechner, Sandner and their daughter were checking out. The
motel worker who answered the phone handed it to Koechner.
"She said she couldn't talk now," Hughes said. "I asked if she was OK, and she said, `No.'"
The sheriff contacted Blue Springs police, but the three were gone by the time officers arrived at the motel.
