Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, August 3, 1993                   TAG: 9308030175
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: ANN ARBOR, MICH.                                LENGTH: Medium

WEEPING TODDLER WHISKED AWAY TO HER NEW PARENTS

"Mommy!" 2 1/2-year-old Jessica screamed as she was whisked Monday from the only home she has known, away from her swing set, away from her dog.

The weeping DeBoers made a final lunge at the dark-eyed toddler they had fought a fierce legal battle to keep. They were restrained by friends as their attorney carried Jessica away from their two-story house, adorned with signs that made one last heart-breaking plea.

"Dan and Cara, please don't take our little Jessica away," read the signs punctuated with a red heart that was split in two and dripping red tears.

Attorney Suellyn Scarnecchia strapped the wailing toddler into a car seat in a waiting minivan, then climbed in beside her. Earlier, DeBoer had loaded the van with Jessica's bed and mattress, blue and white striped stroller and boxes of belongings.

Scarnecchia said Jessica cried, "I want my dad. Where's my dad?" as she rode to the Ann Arbor police station, where her biological parents, Daniel and Cara Schmidt, waited.

Within the hour they were on a chartered plane, flying toward a new life in Iowa. The plane landed at an undisclosed location and the Schmidts' attorney, Marian Faupel, drove to Cedar Rapids to speak to waiting reporters.

"We had a happy, safe flight," she said.

She said Jessica slept and opened presents, including a plastic airplane with passengers inside.

Jessica, who is calling the Schmidts by their first names, never asked about the DeBoers during the flight, Faupel said.

The new family went into seclusion, rather than return to their home in Blairstown, Iowa, about 25 miles west of Cedar Rapids, she said.

"It will take a while to cement this relationship," Faupel said.

Earlier Monday, the Iowa Supreme Court rejected a request for an emergency stay of the transfer. The news came just five minutes before Jessica's last ride away from her Michigan home.

"I thought someone very high up would say, `I just can't watch this,' " said Joan Pheney Engstrom, a member of the DeBoer support group Justice for Jessi.

Jessica had been told she would be moving to Iowa, but didn't learn until Sunday she would leave Monday, Scarnecchia said. Meetings over the past three weeks between the Schmidts and their daughter were intended to ease the move.

Jessica appeared to have some idea of what was going on, said Don DuQuette of the University of Michigan Law School, who has worked on the DeBoers' behalf.

On Saturday, Jessica suddenly looked at DeBoer and said, "The court gave me away," DuQuette said at a news conference. The DeBoers did not attend.