Lisa and Janet in happier times
You may or may not remember the story of Lisa Miller and Janet Jenkins and their daughter Isabella which we’ve been reporting on since late 2009, when Lisa fled the country with Isabella never to be seen again.
Just to recap before we get to the new news: Lisa and Janet met in 1997, at which time Lisa divorced her husband and began a relationship with Janet. They were engaged by February 1998 and eventually moved to Vermont where they obtained a civil union. Janet paid around fifty thousand dollars to facilitate Lisa’s pregnancy and subsequent birth of Isabella, which happened in Virginia in 2002. They then returned to Vermont and lived there.
The couple split in August 2003 and in September 2003, Lisa and Isabella returned to Virginia.
The Vermont court granted Miller primary custody when they split up but also recognized Janet Jenkins’ legal parenthood and the subsequent visitation rights that go along with that. This included daily phone calls and a few weeks each summer.
But then! Apparently, Lisa Miller got cured of The Gay! She became an Evangelical Baptist and freed herself from the chains of homosexuality. Subsequently, she filed to dissolve the civil union and demanded full custody of Isabella lest Isabella be raised in a den of sin/sanity.
Janet with her daughter
This is already pretty fucking heartbreaking. Anyone who’s broken up with a girl who now claims to no longer like girls at all knows what it’s like to look into eyes that used to want you and find them vacant and cold.
Things got colder, then: Miller didn’t give Jenkins the visits she was entitled to. The court began issuing warnings in early 2009 that Miller would lose custody if she refused to obey the visitation orders. In late 2009, the Vermont family court shifted primary custody to Jenkins because of Miller’s noncompliance and Miller took that opportunity to COMPLETELY FREAKIN’ VANISH, child in tow. The custody transfer was supposed to happen in January 2010.
A warrant was issued for Lisa Miller’s arrest but she has not yet been found.
But progress! Last Thursday, the FBI arrested Timothy David Miller, a pastor from Tennesee and a missionary for Christian Aid Ministry. Timothy allegedly helped Lisa & Isabella flee the country in September 2009, arranging for them to fly to Canada and then to Mexico and then to Nicaragua, where he did his “missionary work.”
In June of 2010, an anonymous person called Janet Jenkins’ lawyers and told her that Lisa and Isabella were living in a beach house in Nicaragua owned by a Phillip Zodhiates, a conservative businessman who has close ties to Liberty University, an evangelical school. The dean of Liberty actually represented Lisa in court on the custody issues, arguing that since Virginia bans same-sex unions, Jenkins had no rights. They lost, obviously. The FBI investigation amped up.
According to the F.B.I. affidavit, which was unsealed in Vermont on Thursday, the pastor arranged for Lisa and Isabella to flee the country. The escape began in Toronto, Canada, where on September 22nd Lisa & Isabella took a Mexicana Airlines flight to Mexico City and then, from Mexico City, flew to El Salvador.
On September 23rd they flew from El Salvador to Managua, Nicaragua, where Timothy David Miller worked as a missionary for Christian Aid Ministries. (Worth noting — “The existence of a biological relationship between Timothy Miller and Lisa Miller has not been established.”)
An Immigrations & Customs Enforcement Special Agent reports that no border records suggest that Miller has re-entered the country since September 22, 2009.
The FBI built their case mostly on emails between Timothy and his family, which are, obviously, fascinating. Lisa is seen as a victim by the people helping her to prevent Janet from seeing her daughter due to Janet’s “homosexual lifestyle”:
“This sounds a little like Joy Coats how they ruled to give the Grandparents custody. People can be so unfeeling for the children included. I will be praying about this.”
“Another big thing right now is CAM higher ups say she may not even go to CAM [Christian Aid Ministries] any more for the protection of the organization. That’s pretty sick. The isolation is driving her and little Lydia crazy!”
“Sorry, folks, the Lisa subject should currently not be a topic of discussion or emailing. I t might soon, or it jus t might be more of a secret. Please advise folks about this. Pray. Definitely, pray.”
Zodhiates told The Advocate that Lisa and Isabella are totally not at all living with him at all.
As this case goes on it gets scarier and scarier — when Isabella is found and returned to Janet Jenkins, how long will it take for her to overcome the endless indoctrination and brainwashing she’s likely been experiencing under Lisa’s “care”? Records indicate Isabella hasn’t been enrolled in any schools in the area, so she’s probably not learning what she should be learning or even socializing with other kids. And, perhaps most importantly, why are these alleged missionaries of G-d doing things G-d would never, ever approve of?
Great, now I am crying on the bus and people are looking at me. This is so upsetting. I hope they find that child ASAP. I also hope Lisa Miller eventually become ex-ex-gay so she maybe gets a little saner and doesn’t lead a totally miserable existence.
This is so horrific and wrong.
I really hope they find them both and return Isabella to Janet. She’s still young enough that it hopefully won’t take too long to undo all the brainwashing.
It would be more difficult to undo the brainwashing if the child is young =/
too much fuckery and bitchism in this world.
I hope Timothy Miller gets hit by a bus, the kid gets returned to Janet and un-brainwashed, and that Lisa Miller GETS SOME FRIGGIN THERAPY.
Also, why is it that all the “ex-gays” that I’ve heard of ALWAYS go to Baptist churches? Go to a Unitarian Universalist or Episcopal church or something, maybe instead of praying the gay away they can pray the crazy away. Wait, do Unitarian Universalists pray?
Depends on the Unitarian Universalist, I believe :)
And perhaps ‘ex-gays’ don’t go to Episcopalian churches or UU gatherings because those groups don’t encourage people to become ‘ex-gays’ in the first place.
… True.
I can’t help but marvel at the absolute fucking nuttery of Lisa Miller and David Miller. Like, they are actually so insane that they can’t rationally understand how to achieve their twisted objectives.
On some level, I can understand that an ‘ex-lesbian’ who has for one reason or another has come to reject her former ‘sinful lifestyle’ no longer wants her child to see her other parent. I can understand why her new church supports her in that, or that they would have actively brought her to that position. I think it’s sad and wrong and horrible, but I understand how it comes about.
What I do not understand is they would then think it’s a good idea achieve this by engaging in acts that are very obviously going to lose Miller’s custody of the child permanently, such as INTERNATIONAL KIDNAPPING, unless Lisa Miller and Isabella are going to live as fugitives for the indefinite future.
Maybe I am ranting here… I guess I just do not understand how people can become so blinded by self-loathing and / or homophobia that they totally lose their capacity for rational thought. The whole thing is just too sad for words.
I would venture to say that homophobia itself is an irrational position. Very rationalized, I’m sure, but fundamentally irrational. Everything is just schlepped on top of that to justify that crazy base misguided belief.
Yeah, I do agree. Once you lay a foundation like that, the whole structure is going to be rotten one way or another.
I think Gabrielle who commented below is also right when she observes the adults involved are so internally messed up they’ve lost touch with reality. You could probably write it as an equation: homophobia + emotionally unstable parent + small child = international clusterfuck.
Also, off topic, but every time I see your username my brain misreads it as ‘terra tomatoes’, and then I get cravings. TMI?
you join numerous others for whom terracottatoes reads as anything but stone foot appendages. generally food things: potatoes, cottage cheese, tomatoes… one day i’ll just disappear for a few months and come back as a whole new person and no one shall ever know.
I always read it “terracotta totes”.
Ok, and when I see you, I think of strawberries!
It probably has very little to do with you guys and everything to do with my food-obsessed brain.
No, don’t do that! We’d miss your witty puns and / or unintentional culinary signalling.
@dizzy i am totally with you on this one.
forget the gay stuff for just a second, i know it’s important but for a moment let it go.
the kid has been kidnapped and taken on a trip around the world like she was a couple of kilos of coke.
the adults who are responsible for her are obviously emotionally unstable and at this point have lost touch with reality and the law.
and i grew up in a holy roller evangelical born again kind of church…
they told us that homosexuality comes from actual demons possessing you and that these demons could follow you for the rest of your life and pull you into the pits of hell and all that shit…
so this lady could be in her mind running from demons and trying to save her kid from them.
it’s insane but we’re not in her shoes.
either way, the kid isn’t safe. she’s been abducted by her own mother.
fuck stranger danger.
husbands rape wives. mothers abduct children and sometimes drive them into the hudson river…
meh now i’m going to go smoke some trees or something…
I think you are right gabrielle… emotionally or mentally unstable people can do terrible things to the people closet to them. It’s hard to know what came first here: homophobia, or the emotional instability of the adults involved in her kidnapping. Since it seems like both conditions feed off each other, and one can cause the other.
Also, I’m sorry that you had to grow up in that environment. No one should have to hear things like that about themselves. I hope you’ve been able to get past any pain that it has caused you.
That’s horrific O_o I hope that they find her soon- and that the return her to the parent who WON’T kindnap her and indoctrinate her to hate teh gays.
:/ this is terrible.
This is awful and heartbreaking and scary and angry-making and I keep imaging possible happy endings but I’m afraid it won’t turn out that way. I can’t even talk about all my feelings because it’s so overwhelming.
This is so infuriating, I really have little to no sympathy for parents who kidnap their kids
What would Jesus do?
I BET KIDNAPPING ISN’T THE ANSWER!
I really like this.
I never thought I’d be quoting scripture, but “You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name” seems fitting.
Every time I hear anything about this story, I want to vomit.
This makes me so angry. Why do crazy kidnapping parents never consider what’s going to happen to their children 10 years down the road when the authorities finally catch up to them? The child is going to be ripped away from the only parent they’ve ever known and forced to live someone who is now a complete stranger them. It’s just so stupid and selfish. My heart really goes out to this little girl.
This is a very sad story indeed, good luck to Janet I feel she will need it.
Little bit of an interesting follow up involving a law school exam at Liberty that relates to this case on a couple of levels:
http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/politics/4585/
see the exam question here: http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/guest_bloggers/4608/
Let people decide as well. If they don’t want to be gay then let them. Why knock yourselves out about it?