It seems strange to think that a person could be charged with kidnapping when the children they are accused of taking were their own. After all, how could it be kidnapping when you took your own kids? Aren’t they your kids, that you can go anywhere with? The answer is no, because when the court has ordered visitation and custody, you are required to stick to those orders. Any deviation without a good cause that you could explain to a judge is going to land you in hot water!
This was certainly the case for 39-year-old Courtney Peck, a mother of two from Grosse Pointe, who is charged with having kidnapped her two daughters. According to James Peck, the girl’s father, Courtney took the two girls on a road trip to northern Michigan on August 13th. She was scheduled to be back by August 21st to return the girls to their dad, as per the court’s custody agreement. But she never showed up.
She also never showed up for the scheduled court hearing that she had in Oakland County for reckless driving and child abuse. The charges stem from an incident that took place in August of 2015, where Courtney was parked in a no trespassing zone at 3 am. An officer pulled in behind her, but when he approached the car she fled the scene. A short time later the same officer pulled her over again, but once again she fled the scene.
This time, however, the officer did not pursue her. Instead he notified other officers in the area and provided a description of her vehicle. She was pulled over just ten miles away, where officers used stop sticks to bring her vehicle to a stop, and arrested. She was charged with Fleeing and Eluding Police, Reckless driving, and also Fourth Degree Child Abuse because she had her three month old infant in the car with her at the time.
CPS took Courtney’s infant and placed her with relatives, however she did not lose custody of her other two girls whom she shares with James Peck. But after this most recent alleged kidnapping incident, it wouldn’t come as much of a surprise if CPS filed a petition to have her custody revoked or worse, her parental rights terminated.
Courtney and the two girls, aged 5 and 8-years-old, were located by bounty hunters in in Florida. They were living in the vacation home of a Jacksonville maritime attorney named Donald Moses, and driving his car as well. The home was said to be filthy and unfit to live in by the bounty hunters who located the girls. They also said that although there was a brief scuffle, they were quickly able to take Courtney into custody.
The two girls told their father that they didn’t know they had left Michigan. They still thought they were somewhere up north. They will be starting school, now that they are back in their father’s custody. Currently there is no information on what charges Courtney will be facing in connection with this most recent incident.