Two decades after a boy was allegedly abducted as a baby by his father in Silver Spring, the search continues. Augustine Emeasoba did not have custody of 17-month old Oscar Emeasoba when he took the boy and fled in August 1992, said Melinda Stevens, director of the missing children division of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.
“We have been looking for Oscar for a very, very long time,” Stevens said.
A warrant for Augstine Emeasoba’s arrest was issued in Montgomery County in October 1992, but has never been served, according to court records.
The pair is believed to have fled to either the father’s native Nigeria or elsewhere in the Montgomery County area, Stevens said.
She said children taken at such young ages often don’t know that they are considered missing.
“They don’t have any memory,” she said. “They don’t know that they’re not quite where they should be.”
NCMEC has distributed age-progressed photographs of what Oscar would look like now and continues to do analytical searches for signs of him.
The State Department has reported a rise in international parental kidnapping cases in recent years, but authorities say the cases are hard to resolve because they involve foreign laws and courts.
Oscar would now be 20, making him an adult and free to live where he wants, but “we don’t close a family abduction case until the whereabouts and the welfare of the child are verified,” Stevens said.
Oscar is described as black, with brown eyes and black hair, according to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. He has a small black birthmark on his upper leg. His father, would now be 69, is described as black, about 5 feet 8 inches tall and 200 pounds. He has black hair, brown eyes and scars on his hands and feet.
Anyone with information can call NCMEC at 800-THE-LOST (843-6578).
