Tourist’s Photo Yields Abduction Arrest

OAK PARK HEIGHTS, Minn. — A boy allegedly abducted by his father eight months ago was back home in Texas after a woman vacationing in Belize became suspicious about the father and son she met there.

Jake Clenney, 4, was the only child at the hotel, and even though his father was friendly and the boy seemed happy, Barbara Quinlan said she felt something was wrong.

“Maybe it’s motherly instinct; you just kind of know these things,” she said.

Quinlan had her fiance pretend to take a picture of her, but focus on the man in the background, David Clenney.

After returning to her Minnesota home in February, Quinlan found images of the boy and his father on the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s website. She then sent her vacation photo of Clenney to the Runnels County Sheriff’s Department in Texas.

FBI agents went to Belize and arrested Clenney last week. The boy’s mother, Heather Clenney, accompanied the agents and was reunited with her son. They returned home to Miles, Texas, on Friday.

David Clenney, meanwhile, pleaded not guilty to a charge of international parental kidnapping. He was ordered detained by a federal judge in Lubbock, Texas, after he waived his right to a hearing.

If convicted, he faces up to three years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

The federal prosecutor declined to comment. Clenney’s public defender, Jerry Beard, called the government’s case “an interesting story” but “certainly not the complete story.”

FBI Special Agent Bill Endorf says Quinlan solved the case. “For Quinlan to be on vacation and to have those instincts, take the photos and then follow up when she got home is incredible,” he said.