Parents kidnap pregnant daughter in bid to force abortion
A couple upset that their 19-year-old daughter was pregnant tied her up, loaded her in their car and began driving to New York to force her to get an abortion, police said.
The daughter, Katelyn Kampf, escaped Friday at a shopping center and called police, who arrested her parents, Nicholas Kampf, 54, and Lola, 53, of North Yarmouth, Maine. They were jailed on a kidnapping charge and were being held on £79,000 bail each.
The parents were scheduled to be arraigned in Salem District Court. A call to attorney Mark Sisti was not immediately returned. "Her parents chased her out into the yard, grabbed and tied her hands and feet together," Salem Police Officer Sean Marino wrote in a court affidavit. "Katelyn states that her father then carried her to their car and they headed toward New Hampshire."
Investigators said rope, duct tape, scissors and a .22-caliber rifle were found in the Kampfs' Lexus and Nicholas Kampf had a loaded .22-caliber magazine clip in his pants pocket.
The Kampfs were upset that their daughter was pregnant by a man who is now in jail, police said, and before leaving Maine on Friday they had an argument at the parents' home.
"Katelyn stated to me that upon her parents finding out that she was pregnant, they told her she had no choice but to get an abortion," Marino wrote in his court affidavit.
Katelyn Kampf escaped from her parents in Salem after persuading them to untie her so she could use a Kmart bathroom. After her father went into the men's room, she used a cell phone to call for help, then ran to a nearby Staples store, where police found "a hysterical female hiding in the back of the store," according to the affidavit.
She got into Marino's cruiser while Sgt. Kristin Fili pulled over her parents.
"They told us initially they did take her here against her will, but they denied tying her up initially," Fili said. "Obviously what happened was a crime. She was taken against her will."
Authorities in Maine said the parents apparently thought that, in light of their daughter's stage of pregnancy and the different abortion laws in each state, the abortion should be performed in New York. Fili said she did not know how many weeks pregnant she was.
Maine law prohibits abortions once a fetus is able to live outside the uterus unless the mother's life or health is at stake.
The law does not specify when that is, but it generally is 20 to 27 weeks, said Dr. Dora Ann Mills, director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. New York law prohibits abortions after the 24th week of pregnancy unless the woman's life is at stake.
