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Alleged
parental abduction betrays hole in Vietnamese dragnet
Ela Herawati shows a copy with an image of her
daughter who went missing with her divorced husband more than 20 days ago.
Photo credit: VnExpress/Q.T
Ela Herawati, 35,
arrived in
“I was shocked to see his condition,” she said.
Once stout and sprightly Karl Werner, 37, moved slowly
and favored a cane.
The pair climbed into a taxi with their chubby-cheeked
five-year old daughter and rode to the Oscar hotel on
Herawati, a slender, raven-haired Indonesian in
Don't trust these people, she recalled him saying. Don't play with your phone
on the street, don't leave it on the table.
The next morning, the estranged family visited Werner's
sparsely furnished apartment in District 1. Herawati recalls Werner saying
he'd put most of his things into storage and would head to
For the next few days, Herawati says she brought her
daughter to visit her estranged father every morning and picked her up every
night.
Occasionally, she would tidy the apartment for her
sickly ex-husband, whom she hadn't since their messy divorce in 2014.
On July 22 of that year, an Indonesian court issued a
decision awarding Herawati full-custody of their child and ordered Werner to
pay $500 a month in child support.
Herawati claims she received the favorable ruling after
producing evidence that Werner had cheated on her. Herawati and her attorney
say he never paid a cent of child support.
Werner never responded to text messages and a list of
emailed questions. An official at the US Consulate likewise said they've been
unable to get a hold of him.
“Creative, enthusiastic, dedicated”
Karl Werner began playing the piano at age five and took
up the trumpet and violin in middle school, according to a cover letter he
posted online in which he described himself as a “creative, enthusiastic and
dedicated instrumental music teacher.”
As a student, Werner played violin in several regional
orchestras. He first studied abroad in
He and Herawati married in 2008 and had their daughter
in
In July of 2014, long after his divorce ruling, Werner
called the FBI and claimed that his wife had abducted their daughter two
months prior.
“If possible, I would like [Herawati] and my daughter
stopped at any border crossing while attempting to use my daughter's passport,”
he wrote in an email. “I will then travel to collect my daughter […] My
family and I are very distraught.”
A file photo shows Karl Werner and
the daughter. Photo credit: VietNamNet
Werner's parents didn't respond to several messages left
at their home in
By the time Werner was petitioning the FBI for help, he
had already moved to
(The school did not respond to a phone call seeking
comment, but has since taken Werner's profile down from its website).
The FBI declined to open an investigation and requested
a custody order, according to correspondence provided by Herawati's lawyer.
Herawati says she met with US Embassy officials in
Moving on
After her divorce, Herawati moved to
In the
Soon she began to imagine a future where they would
raise their daughter as friends.
“Like a team,” she said.
Then things got rather dramatic.
When a Vietnamese woman contacted Herawati offering
$9,000 for her daughter’s participation in a photo shoot, Herawati says she
contacted Werner who denied knowing anything about it.
Soon after the incident, Werner announced he'd been
diagnosed with bone cancer and feared for the worst.
“I want to make it right before I meet God,” he wrote in
a screen-captured chat Herawati sent to a friend.
Eventually, Herawati agreed to bring their daughter to
visit him in
“If he dies and doesn't get to see her,” she remembers
thinking. “I'll hate myself forever.”
On their first day together, Herawati and Werner went to
the
At one point, she says, Werner tried to get her to sign
some sort of will, but she refused.
The mother's future looked bright.
Soon, she and the girl would spend Ramadan with her
family back in
On July 15, Werner hired a car to take them all to Vung
Tau where he'd rented them rooms at the Lan Rung Resort.
They arrived at around 1PM.
That afternoon, Herawati says Werner handed her a spa
voucher and tip money. When she tried to return to her room, she found it
locked.
When she finally had the hotel staff open it, she found
it empty with the exception of her husband's cane.
At that point, she began to suspect everything she had
been told was a lie.
An abduction
Herawati says it took some time for her to realize and
explain to the resort's staff that she had been robbed and her daughter had
been taken without her consent.
CCTV cameras showed Werner leaving the resort with his
ex-wife's luggage in the company of a Vietnamese woman.
Phuong's attorney later discovered that the woman who
assisted Werner had checked in on a false passport. Werner accompanied her,
paid for Herawati's room in cash and left a note.
The driver that brought them to the hotel would return
to pick up Herawati up at around 5AM and take her to the airport.
A still image from CCTV cameras
shows Karl Werner leaving the Lan Rung Resort in Vung Tau with the daughter.
Photo credit: CongAn Online
Speaking no Vietnamese and having been robbed of
everything but VND200,000 and her passport, Herawati called the police and
engaged in a series of frantic translated telephone exchanges with the driver
who finally arrived at 3AM with her luggage.
Herawati claims someone had taken her telephone, cash
and jewelry.
Werner would later tell her attorney that no one took
anything from his ex-wife.
Herawati claims the driver spent the next five hours
circling
Instead, she grabbed his cell phone and wrote down the
last three numbers he'd dialed.
Eventually airport security detained her and told her to
leave the airport.
The numbers she'd written down would prove her only link
back to Werner and the mysterious Vietnamese woman assisting him.
A turtle's pace
The response in
Herawati claims she used her last bank not to take a
taxi to the Indonesian Consulate.
A local attorney named Nguyen Thi Diem Phuong who heard
about Herawati's predicament while staying at the Lan Rung Resort found
Herawati through an Indonesian client and offered to represent her pro bono.
Seeking to settle the matter without involving the
police, Phuong dialed the numbers Herawati had copied out of the driver's
phone.
Eventually she got in touch with a woman who identified
as Nguyen Phuc Quynh and claimed to be the wife of Werner's best friend.
Phuong says a review of police mugshots never matched
her purported names. Friends who contacted Phuong through Facebook say the
woman's actual name is An.
After some negotiation the woman summoned Werner to the
coffee shop.
When he arrived, Phuong says she offered to draft a
custody-sharing agreement on the condition that he call his ex-wife and let
her know their daughter is safe.
Werner allegedly left the meeting saying he'd consider
the offer.
Instead he called the attorney the following day and
broke down sobbing.
According to a recording of their conversation, Werner
said Herawati and her boyfriend had left him unable to return his daughter.
“I'll never see her again,” he said.
Werner further claimed his daughter had drawn “terrible”
pictures of Herawati's boyfriend with “fangs and things.”
“Honestly, I don't really have anything in my life
except [my daughter],” he said . “If I lose my job, if I go to jail if I lose
my reputation, it's OK. Because, honestly, I don't really have anything.”
At the conclusion of the call, he promised to call
Herawati and never did, according to Phuong.
21 days later
The Indonesian consulate has thrice petitioned the US
Consulate to take action on behalf of Herawati's daughter, an American
citizen.
A source speaking on background at the
“I believe the Vietnamese authorities are doing so,” she
said.
The
They have no record of having left, though portions of
In the meantime, Werner's cancer narrative appears to be
unraveling.
Werner had only rented his District 1 apartment a few
days before Herawati's arrival.
When she finally discovered Werner had been sharing an
apartment in District 7 with a Vietnamese woman, she enlisted her father and
the district police to accompany her to knock on the door. No one answered,
but Phuong instantly received a texted photograph taken from outside the
building and a message in broken English.
A supplied photo shows Ela Herawati
and her daughter in a trip few months ago.
“I know you guys are trying to find my place but believe
me you are pushing [the child] in dangerous[sic],” the message read. “But you
will see hows[sic] things will go.”
The landlord said Werner and the woman hadn't paid their
July rent.
Phuong claims that Werner has threatened to release
prurient pictures of Herawati if she doesn't back off--a crime punishable in
Displeased by local newspaper coverage, the driver
(identified only as Nhut) has insisted that Herawati and Phuong come to Vung
Tau to clear up his role in the abduction.
They declined, fearing for their safety.
Meanwhile, police there have told Phuong they're only
now elevating the case to the municipal department.
Several concerned citizens have suggested Herawati and
her attorney take a trip to Bac Lieu Province to speak to the parents of the
woman variously identified as Quynh and An.
All of this seems like the sort of thing one might do to
recover a beloved bicycle, not a five year-old American citizen.
Herawati hasn't seen her daughter in three weeks and
purports not to know whether she is dead or alive.
When asked what everyone should know about this case,
she answered simply:
“They should be embarrassed.”
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Thứ Ba, 4 tháng 8, 2015
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