DEONNA SHIPMAN

Family Abduction
DEONNA SHIPMAN


DOB: Aug 7, 2003
Missing: Jul 12, 2007
Age Now: 5
Sex: Female
Race: White
Hair: Blonde
Eyes: Blue
Height: 3'3" (99 cm)
Weight: 35 lbs (16 kg)
Missing From:
LIVERPOOL
NY
United States
Age Progressed

JEFFERY SHIPMAN


Abductor
DOB: Aug 8, 1960
Sex: Male
Race: White
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Brown
Height: 6'2" (188 cm)
Weight: 220 lbs (100 kg)


Deonna's photo is shown age-progressed to 5 years. She was allegedly abducted by her father, Jeffery Shipman, on July 12, 2007. A federal warrant for International Parental Kidnapping was issued for Jeffery Shipman on July 18, 2007. They may travel to England or Germany. Deonna's ears are pierced. She has a birthmark on the back of her neck.
ANYONE HAVING INFORMATION SHOULD CONTACT
National Center for Missing & Exploited Children
1-800-843-5678 (1-800-THE-LOST)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Onondaga County Sheriff's Office (New York) 1-315-425-2111 or Federal Bureau of Investigation (New York) 1-518-465-7551

Please Help Me Find My Daughter

5 Year Old Deonna Shipman Missing From Liverpool, New York, USA Since July 12, 2007







Deonna's non-custodial father, Jeffery Shipman pictured above, abducted her and is believed to have taken her out of the country to England or Germany.

Updated 8/4/2008 - Five-year-old Deonna Shipman went missing from her mom's home in Liverpool, New York, USA on July 12, 2007. Her 47-year-old father, Jeffery Shipman, picked up his daughter earlier that day on a court appointed visit. He was supposed to bring her back the following morning but he never returned. Jeffery Shipman is 5' 11'' and weighs about 220 pounds. He is an American citizen and speaks with an American accent.

The Onondaga County Sherriffs Office has issued a New York State Missing Child Alert and a federal felony warrant for Kidnapping was issued for the Jeffery Shipman on July 18, 2007. They are worried that Deonna may be in trouble. Deonna's mother Luba is desperate for any information leading to her safe return.

Shipman's estranged wife, "When the judge didn't grant him custody, Shipman once stated that if he can't have his daughter, no one will."
Keep On The Lookout - Please Help Us Find Deonna




Deonna may have been taken out of the country, possibly to England or Germany.
Deonna has blonde hair, blue eyes, and is about 3' 3''. She was last seen wearing white light-up sandals, purple pants with multi-colored flowers, a purple shirt with strawberries on the front with stripes on the sides. Deonna was also wearing blue stone earrings. She has a noticeable red birthmark on the back of her neck along her hairline.

The FBI is now handling the case and looking into new leads out of the country.

Family Abduction

Have you seen either of these people?



DEONNA SHIPMAN






MISSING

DOB: Aug 7, 2003
Missing: Jul 12, 2007
Age Now: 4
Sex: Female
Race: White
Hair: Blonde
Eyes: Blue
Height: 3'3" (99 cm)
Weight: 35 lbs (16 kg)
Missing From:
LIVERPOOL
NY
United States

JEFFERY SHIPMAN

ABDUCTOR


DOB: Aug 8, 1960
Sex: Male
Race: White
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Brown
Height: 5'11" (180 cm)
Weight: 220 lbs (100 kg)



Deonna was abducted by her non-custodial father, Jeffery Shipman, on July 12, 2007. A federal felony warrant for Kidnapping was issued for the Jeffery Shipman on July 18, 2007. They may travel to England or Germany. Deonna's ears are pierced. She has a birthmark on the back of her neck.


ANYONE HAVING INFORMATION SHOULD CONTACT
National Center for Missing & Exploited Children
1-800-843-5678 (1-800-THE-LOST)
Onondaga County Sheriff's Office (New York) 1-315-425-2111
Federal Bureau of Investigation (New York) 1-518-465-7551




Authorities search for missing girl
Updated: 7/16/2007 10:04 PM
By: Ryan Dean

Deonna Shipman
ONONDAGA COUNTY, N.Y.
-- Luba Shipman sits and waits to hear something, anything, about where her daughter is and if she's okay.

"I don't even know if she's alive, you know. I don't even know if I'm going to see her, you know. All I have is memories left of her and pictures to look at," said Deonna's mother, Luba Shipman.

Three-year-old Deonna Shipman has not been seen by her mother since Wednesday. Police believe the girl is with her father who does not have custody of the child, just visitation rights.

"He was supposed to bring her back Thursday afternoon. Thursday afternoon, obviously, his wife got very concerned and reported her missing," said Onondaga County Sheriff Kevin Walsh

"So far, we haven't turned up anything," said Walsh.

Police, along with Deonna's mother, say Shipman owns guns and in the past has had suicidal tendencies.

"He was on all kinds of medications. I don't know if he's on any medications now, you know. That's why I'm concerned. He may be out of his mind," said Luba Shipman.

Luba says Shipman recently lost a custody battle for Deonna in court, and he told her if he can't have her, no one will.

If you have any information, you're asked to call 911 or 1-800-FIND-KID.





http://www.cnylink.com/cnynews/view_news.p...s_id=1216834057

Still missing Deonna

07/23/08

More than 365 days.

Over five million minutes.

In excess of 31 million seconds.

That’s how long it’s been since Luba Shipman of Liverpool has seen her daughter.

Four-year-old Deonna was taken by her father, Jeffrey Shipman of North Syracuse, for his court-ordered visitation July 11, 2007. Neither has been seen since.

That’s when Luba Shipman became what experts call “the left-behind parent.”

Luba and her ex-husband, Jeffrey, shared joint custody of the little girl since their divorce three years ago.

While Luba had physical custody, Jeffrey was allowed visitation. Both parents filed petitions seeking to modify the order in June of 2007 in Onondaga County Family Court.

At the family’s last court appearance, Jeffrey told Luba, “If I can’t have her, no one will.”
“I took it lightly,” she said shortly after her daughter’s disapperance. “I thought he was just angry.”

Deonna went to her father’s for her scheduled court-ordered visitation on Wednesday July 11. She was supposed to return by 5 p.m. Thursday July 12.

Instead, both Deonna and her father vanished.

Jeffrey Shipman’s car was found in the parking lot of the Rochester airport on July 19. Investigators have confirmed that he has taken Deonna and left the country.

“They’ve tracked him to London,” Luba Shipman said. “According to their passport activity [Jeffrey Shipman had insisted on taking his daughter’s passport, as Luba is originally from the Ukraine and he told the judge he feared she would leave the country with Deonna], their last exit was Heathrow Airport.”

Shipman said the FBI told her Jeffrey Shipman had bought two sets of tickets – one round-trip to Frankfurt, Germany and one to London. The tickets to Frankfurt were not used; investigators suspect Jeffrey Shipman bought them to throw them off his trail.
“But they have confirmed that he is definitely in England,” Luba Shipman said.

Family abduction: A common problem

According to David O’Brien, chief counsel for Missing Children’s Services at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) in Alexandria, VA, kidnapping is defined as any act that deprives a child’s legal guardian of the custody of that child. The mission of the NCMEC is to prevent just that from happening, as well as to provide services to victims of abduction or sexual exploitation, their families and the professionals who serve them. The NCMEC also serves as a clearinghouse for information on child abduction and sexual exploitation. Since its founding in 1984, the NCMEC had assisted law enforcement officials with over 138,000 missing child cases, resulting in the recovery of 121,500 missing children.

The NCMEC reports that some 797,500 children are reported missing each year, some 2,185 every day. Of those, 203,900 are family abductions, meaning the child is taken by a family member. In order to address those cases, the NCMEC has units that deal specifically with family abduction cases, both domestic and international. According to the U.S. Department of State, about 1,000 children are taken abroad by non-custodial parents every year.

Though he couldn’t speak specifically to the Shipman case, O’Brien said the center had dealt with numerous similar cases over the years and he could speak in generalities.

“With international cases, there are additional legal complications,” O’Brien said. “You have an additional layer of government and bureaucracy to cut through. Fortunately, thanks to the Hague Convention, we have agreements with other nations so that, if found, the children will be returned to the U.S. and to their custodial parent.”

O’Brien said that the typical image of a kidnapping – that a child is taken by a stranger for some nefarious purpose – is far more unlikely than the media portrays it. According to a 2002 release from the National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway and Thrownaway Children (NISMART), most children who are reported missing either ran away (48 percent) or were reported missing because of a benign misunderstanding about where the child was supposed to be (28 percent). About 15 percent become injured or lost, preventing or delaying their return home. Nine percent are abducted by family members, and just 3 percent are taken by strangers.

But custodial interference or family abduction cases can be just as dangerous to a child.

“The problem of child abduction by family members is a serious one in the United States,” said Ernest Allen, former president and COO of the NCMEC in his paper, “The Kid Is With A Parent, How Bad Can It Be: The Crisis of Family Abductions,” which was published in 1991. The paper revealed that numerous victims of family abductions suffer devastating consequences, including severe mental harm, physical harm and physical and sexual abuse. Allen suggested that these are especially common in cases of custodial interference, like the Shipman case.

“People don’t tend to think of it as an abduction,” O’Brien said. “They think if a child is with a parent, they must be safe. But, unfortunately, that’s not always the case. There are cases in which the parent does intend to harm the child.”

Even if there is no physical harm done to the abducted child, the psychological damage can be irreparable.
“It’s a highly charged emotional situation,” O’Brien said. “The psychological impact on the child in that situation is tremendous. They’re deprived of the other parent, and often the abducting parent tells them outright lies about the left-behind parent – that they’re dead or they didn’t want the child anymore.”

Hope remains

Still, it’s not a hopeless situation, as a recent local case revealed. Four-year-old Donovan Camberos was recently reunited with his father, Juan Camberos, in Syracuse. The boy was taken from his father’s home in Fairfax, VA two years ago by his non-custodial mother, Bambilynn Towndrow.

The case should serve as an inspiration for Luba Shipman – not that she’s given up. She’s established a website, finddeonna.com, and has hired a private investigator in England to search for her little girl. She’s also joined a support community, Forever Searching, which aims to raise awareness of missing children worldwide.

If you have any information about the whereabouts of Jeffrey or Deonna Shipman, contact the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 1-800-THE-LOST.