Dad abducts 2-year-old, then tries to kill himself (Fairmount Park, Pennsylvania)

Because UNNAMED DAD is upset that mom won't take him back after HE broke up with her for another woman, he kidnaps their 2-year-old daughter--after forcing Mom and her son out of the car. Dad was later found drugged and unconscious near some train tracks in an apparent suicide attempt. The child was found on his chest--crying, but not physically hurt except for some scrapes. This manipulative creep called the mom on her cell phone during the whole ordeal, threatening to kill the child.

Question: If unnamed dad recovers (he's in critical condition), could he get legal visitation?
Answer: All bets are off, especially in Pennsylvania.

Below this article, see a June article about Pennsylvania dad DANIEL AUTENRIETH, who killed a State Trooper after kidnapping his son at gunpoint. Despite a history of violence, Autenrieth had been awarded visitation.

http://www.philly.com/dailynews/local/20090709_Cops__Dad_abducts_kid_then_tries_to_kill_self.html

Cops: Dad abducts kid then tries to kill self
By DAFNEY TALESPhiladelphia Daily News
talesd@phillynews.com 215-854-5084

A man who allegedly threatened to kill himself and his 2-year-old daughter after he abducted her yesterday morning ingested several pills and was found unconscious near the R7 train tracks in Germantown, police said.

The toddler is safe with her mother after being treated for minor scrapes at Albert Einstein Medical Center.

Police said the ordeal began near Belmont Plateau in Fairmount Park at about 10:45 a.m. when the man got into an argument with the mother of their daughter as they rode in her car. The two recently had broken up when he left her for another woman, who later dumped him, police said.
Yesterday, he tried to reconcile with the child's mother, police said, but was rejected, sending him into a rage.

He pulled the woman and her 11-year-old son from a previous relationship, who was in the back seat, out of the car and took off with the toddler still in the car, police said.

While on the road, he called the mother on her cell phone and threatened to kill himself and the baby, the mother told police. Police said the man then got out of the car at SEPTA's R7 Regional Rail line near Wister and Rufe streets and walked with his daughter along the tracks.

Witnesses heard the wails of a child and notified authorities, who found the man unconscious near the tracks with the tearful toddler lying on his chest, police said.

Both were taken to Albert Einstein Medical Center, where he was listed in critical condition yesterday.

The man has been charged with kidnapping and recklessly endangering the welfare of a child.

http://www.thereporteronline.com/articles/2009/06/09/news/doc4a2e533d100f3455320010.txt

Police: Slain trooper rescued kidnapped boy
Tuesday, June 9, 2009

By: Michael Rubinkam, AP

SWIFTWATER — Police officers in northeastern Pennsylvania rescued a 9-year-old boy who had been kidnapped by his father as a fatal gun battle erupted between the man and state troopers, authorities said Monday.

After arguing with his estranged wife during a custody exchange, Daniel Autenrieth kidnapped his son at gunpoint, then led police on a 40-mile high-speed chase that ended with a crash and an exchange of gunfire, state police commissioner Col. Frank Pawlowski said. Autenrieth and a state trooper were killed."

I can't begin to describe the hurt and sorrow being experienced by the Pennsylvania state police," Pawlowski told a somber news conference at the Swiftwater barracks, the trooper's home base. "What happened yesterday is nothing short of an American tragedy.

"The chase Sunday night began outside Easton, about 50 miles north of Philadelphia, and ended just east of Tobyhanna in the Pocono Mountains when troopers purposely bumped Autenrieth's car, causing it to spin into a guard rail along state Route 611.

Troopers Joshua Miller, 34, and Robert Lombardo, 35, then rushed the driver's side. Autenrieth took out a handgun and fired three shots from close range, police said. Though both troopers were hit, they returned fire, striking Autenrieth eight times.

As the troopers and Autenrieth traded fire, two other officers plucked the boy from the front passenger seat of the car. The boy escaped injury.Autenrieth, 31, died at the scene. Miller, a Marine veteran who joined the force in 2002, was shot in the neck and thigh and was rushed to a hospital near Allentown, where he died of his wounds. Lombardo, who has been with the state police for five years, was treated for a gunshot wound and then released.

Both troopers are from Pittston.Outside the Swiftwater barracks Monday, about two dozen troopers, state police personnel and police officers from other departments lined busy Route 611, standing at attention and saluting as a convoy of police cruisers and a police helicopter went past, escorting a hearse carrying Miller's body to a funeral home in Pittston.

Pawlowski called Miller, who was married with three children, a hero."

An individual embroiled in a domestic dispute for some reason chose to escalate the violence, and it ended with a hero losing his life, a wife losing her husband and three children losing a loving father," Pawlowski said.

Police were trying to figure out what set off Autenrieth, who was supposed to drop off his three children curbside at his estranged wife's townhouse Sunday night. Instead, he went into the house in Nazareth — ignoring a May 18 protection-from-abuse order that forbade it — and began arguing with her.

A neighbor, Arlene Benginia, said she heard the couple screaming at each other. By the time she got outside to investigate, police had arrived but Autenrieth and his son were gone.

"He has my son! He has a gun!" screamed the wife, Susan Autenrieth, according to Benginia.Police immediately took off in pursuit and soon caught up to the suspect. The chase lasted more than 30 minutes and involved nine police cruisers as Daniel Autenrieth threaded busy intersections and floored it on major highways, authorities said.

"It was just sheer havoc out along the roadway," Pawlowski said. "It was an extremely dangerous situation."

Police said they are investigating how Autenrieth got the gun. Because he was subject to a protection-from-abuse order, he was not permitted to have one.

No one answered the door at the home on Monday.

Susan Autenrieth's landlord, Jay Orwig, said she moved to the townhouse with her three children in February. Her husband, who lived in nearby Palmer Township, "obviously wasn't thinking about the children at all," he said.

Susan Autenrieth's next-door neighbor, Rachel Lilly, said she met Daniel Autenrieth once, when her children and his children played together at a community park. She said he seemed normal."

I feel so bad for all the children of the families involved, especially the children of the trooper," Lilly said. Susan Autenrieth, she said, is "a sweet lady who doesn't deserve this."