INDIANAPOLIS —

An Indiana woman whose young son was abducted 19 years ago was screaming and "jumping up and down" after learning he was living in Minnesota under a different name, her husband said Thursday shortly after police announced they had found him.

Richard Wayne Landers Jr. was just 5 years old when he and his paternal grandparents, who were upset over custody arrangements, disappeared from Wolcottville, a town about 30 miles north of Fort Wayne.

Indiana State Police said the now 24-year-old Landers was found in Long Prairie, Minn., thanks in part to his Social Security number. His grandparents were living under aliases in a nearby town and confirmed his identity, investigators said.

Police declined to say whether the grandparents would face charges, citing the ongoing investigation.

Landers' mother, Lisa Harter, was "jumping up and down for joy" when investigators told her a few days ago that her son had been found, her husband Richard Harter told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

He said his wife is "the happiest woman on earth."

Harter said he and his wife were working with an attorney and hoped to reunite with his stepson soon.

Police said Landers is married and expecting his first child.

Harter declined further comment and referred questions about the case to his attorney, who didn't immediately return phone messages Thursday. Investigators declined to release the names under which Landers and his grandparents had been living.

Police said the boy's paternal grandparents, Richard E. and Ruth A. Landers, abducted him in July 1994 because they were "upset over pending court proceedings" regarding his placement.

Police spokesman Sgt. Ron Galaviz said it appears the boy's father was never in the picture. Lisa and Richard Harter had married a year earlier.

Authorities believe the grandparents took the boy from their home in Wolcottville and fled. They were charged at the time with misdemeanor interference with custody, which was bumped up to a felony in 1999. But the charge was dismissed in 2008 after the case went cold.

Investigators reopened the case in September when Richard Harter turned over the boy's Social
Security card to an Indiana State Police detective.

That turned up a man with the same Social Security number and date of birth living in Long Prairie, Minn., about 100 miles northwest of Minneapolis. A driver's license photo for the man appeared to resemble Landers, police said.

Indiana State Police then contacted Minnesota law enforcement agencies, which began investigating along with the FBI and the Social Security Administration.

The grandparents were found living in nearby Browerville, Minn.

"By all accounts, it didn't appear he suffered from any abuse, either physical or mental," Galaviz said.

Original Link with Pictures & a Video: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/11/richard-wayne-landers-jr-found_n_2454809.html?1357908530&icid=maing-grid10%7Chtmlws-main-bb%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk2%26pLid%3D255786

My Comment:

This story is awesome one the one hand, and horribly sad on the other! It's phenomenal that this young man's mother has closure and her son is alive!

It's an outright shame that society is so unaware of, or blatantly turns a blind eye to psychological abuse! This young man has without a doubt suffered severe psychological abuse at the hands of his grandparents who felt entitled to take him from his mother in the first place. Granted, I do not know the circumstances behind the kidnapping, however the circumstances are irrelevant compared to the psychological damage done to a 5 year old that was taken from his mother’s life!  

There is no way a child ripped from the only parent he knew could possibly feel loved enough, or good enough, or worthy enough once he was told whatever lies he was told insofar as why his mother was not in his life after the kidnapping!

Additionally, when a child does not feel loved enough, or good enough, or worthy enough they must create inner protectors to keep them sane, safe and secure in a world. Those inner protectors do not age, they stay at the age they were created, and become that child’s personal body guard throughout life- regardless of the growing child’s chronological age, distorting reality, living in denial and making use of every or any defense mechanisms available to the child throughout life, so that the child, young adult, adult will never has to feel that horrific emotional pain in which the inner protector was created to protect him from in the first place.

Please people, it’s time for us to stand up as a society and demand that psychological abuse be punished if not more severely than physical abuse, at least equal to physical abuse..  Because, those whose lives will forever be dysfunctional due to unacknowledged psychological abuse, will suffer after each respective abusive relationship that they cannot help but draw to themselves.

As sad as it is, that’s how abuse and dysfunction work; one will forever reenact the dynamics of their childhood abuse, over and over, and over again.. until they deal with the skeletons in their closets; the ghosts who keep calling the person back to be set free!

The only way of setting the inner protectors free is by acknowledging that they were not loved in a healthy, nourishing way as children. And doing the work of going back, and if need be, one must go back in their own mind as the adult they have become, and they must allow the inner protector to take a breath of fresh air, and be allowed off duty, so that the child can be shown inner love by the adult they have become. (Self-love) Otherwise, that inner protector will be given labels which coincide with the mental health fields personality disorders, and in one way shape or form, that inner protector will be numbed into silence, whether it’s via street drugs or drugs given to them via the big pharma companies!