Tuesday, January 06, 2009

MARYLAND: A missing mother and her two children last seen Thursday were found tonight in a mall in Maryland nearly 200 miles away from their East Hanover home, Morris County Prosecutor Robert A. Bianchi announced tonight.

Patricia Schafer, 38, and her children, Jessica, 3, and John, 13, were stopped in their vehicle by Baltimore County police as they exited the Towson Town Center Mall and approached the Baltimore Beltway Interloop at 6:25 p.m. Detectives from the East Hanover Police Department and Morris County Prosecutor's Office determined that she was in the mall complex, prompting the call to mall security and the Baltimore County police. Mall security followed the vehicle until the Baltimore County police arrived.

"The children are in good health and their father is on his way to pick them up and bring them home," Bianchi said, crediting his office's Missing Persons Unit and the East Hanover detectives with the successful conclusion.

"This successful outcome is the result of a lot of dedicated detectives working around the clock. Anytime children go missing with a parent there is a sense of urgency to find them."

Patricia Schafer is being charged with interfering with the custody of the children, and will remain behind bars in Maryland pending an extradition hearing this week.

Bianchi said that detectives from the Missing Persons Unit and the prosecutor's and sheriff's joint Fugitive Task Force will pick up Schafer in Maryland and return her to the Morris County Jail" as soon as she waives extradition. "If Schafer fails to waive extradition, we will pursue a governor's warrant," Bianchi said.

She and the children were last seen at the family's home Thursday morning at 7:30 a.m. by her husband, Douglas Schafer.

The 5-foot-tall mother is thin, weighing about 85 pounds, and was believed to be driving a metallic 2003 Saturn Wagon, with New Jersey license plates PFZ-77A.

Despite these pending charges every defendant is presumed innocent, unless and until found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt following a jury trial at which the defendant has all of his or her rights guaranteed by the U.S. and New Jersey Constitution and relevant state law.