Teen in High-Profile Custody Case Pleads for Her Mom

Mary Nunes breaks an 11-year silence as mom faces trial
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Apr 28, 2015 1:44 PM CDT
Teen in High-Profile Custody Case Pleads for Her Mom
In a Dec. 18, 2014 file photo, Genevieve Kelley looks at her lawyers during a hearing in Coos County Superior Court in Lancaster, NH. Kelley is charged with fleeing the country with her daughter.   (Jim Cole)

A 19-year-old woman back in the United States after fleeing with her mother and stepfather a decade ago in a custody case is begging a judge to allow contact with her mother, who faces trial next month, and calls her stepfather "the only man I consider to be my dad." In her legal motion dated Friday, Mary Nunes, who is expected to testify on behalf of her mother, Genevieve Kelley, also asks that her testimony be recorded before trial. "I beg the court to have compassion," she says. "No matter how you look at it, I am the victim in this case." Genevieve and Scott Kelley of New Hampshire are charged with custodial interference and witness tampering for disappearing with Mary in 2004, after her mother alleged the girl's father—Genevieve Kelley's ex-husband—abused the child.

Mark Nunes was investigated but never charged, and investigators believed he was unfairly accused. In her statement, Mary Nunes says he sexually abused her. Genevieve Kelley, 51, a family practice doctor, surrendered in November; she isn't allowed to have contact with her daughter or husband, who both arrived in Atlanta on April 15. Scott Kelley, 50, a special ed teacher, was arrested at the airport and is awaiting extradition from Georgia. In the motion, Nunes says her mother and stepfather protected her, "and I asked them to do it." Her whereabouts had been undisclosed, but the motion was notarized in Boulder County, Colo. "I want the opportunity to live again as normally as possible with my mother, dad (Scott), and brother, John," said Nunes, referring to the couple's 10-year-old son. (More missing person stories.)

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