Lawrence mother is sought by Interpol after fleeing U.S. with two young daughters

Justin Bush waits at his Smithville home and watches his phone, hoping for news of his daughters.

He doesn’t know where they are and he worries.

Officials with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security report that Bush’s daughters, Morgan, 9, and Taylor, 11, were last seen in Europe with Bush’s ex-wife, who fled the country last week while facing trial on identify theft and credit card fraud charges in Johnson County, according to court records.

On Friday, Douglas County prosecutors charged Samantha C. Elmer, 33, with two counts of aggravated interference with parental custody.

The search for the girls began Oct. 29 after Bush, 33, made a report to police in Lawrence, where he last knew Elmer and the children to be living. The girls had not been to school in six days and Bush suspected something was wrong.

“This is very weird,” said Bush, an IT manager working in Kansas City, Kan. “It’s the most miserable, miserable feeling in the world to not know where your children are.”

Lawrence police first checked Elmer’s home in Lawrence and found that she and the girls were gone, leaving behind Elmer’s current husband.

Investigators picked up Elmer’s trail with a car rental in Lawrence that was returned at Chicago’s O’Hare airport, where Elmer and the girls apparently boarded a Turkish Airlines flight to Vienna, Austria, via Istanbul, Turkey.

By taking the children out of the U.S. without their father’s involvement, prosecutors said, Elmer broke the law because Bush and Elmer shared joint custody. They divorced in 2013.

An attorney representing Elmer did not return a call seeking comment.

Earlier this year, as Elmer and Bush struggled over custody of the children, Elmer filed a complaint in court that accused Bush of threatening the girls and hitting them. Bush denied the accusation.

Elmer did not leave behind any explanation of her flight, according to authorities, but she faced multiple pending court cases.

In Johnson County, she was due in court Monday to face trial on one count of felony identity theft and two counts of felony criminal use of a credit card. The same day, she faced the prospect of losing custody of the girls in an emergency custody hearing requested by Bush.

Court documents detail Elmer’s increasing difficulties in recent months as she was evicted from a home in Cleveland and then again in Eudora. On Oct. 9, her 2011 Ford Flex was repossessed.

Bush said Elmer, a baker, had been experiencing business problems.

The former couple had lived in Germany from 2003 to 2006 while Bush was stationed there with the U.S. Army. Morgan and Taylor were born in Germany during that time.

Bush said he knew of no connections in Europe that Elmer could rely on.

After Elmer left the country, police in Lawrence continued to investigate while the FBI and Homeland Security extended the search. The federal agencies alerted Interpol and European police, who now have authority to take the children into custody if they are found. Bush would then have to fly overseas to pick them up.

Bush said he has not seen or spoken with his daughters since March, citing ongoing disputes with Elmer. But he had a message for them:

“We miss them and we want them home. We want them safe.”

This story was originally published November 6, 2015 at 7:49 PM with the headline "Lawrence mother is sought by Interpol after fleeing U.S. with two young daughters."