Abducted 7-year-old Calif. girl placed with foster family after being found in Phoenix

Abducted Calif. girl, 7, placed with foster family

LOS ANGELES — A 7-year-old girl who was snatched from California as a toddler and raised in Arizona has learned her true name and was being given therapy to cope with the trauma of leaving the only family she remembers, an investigator said Monday.

Amber Nicklas was placed with an undisclosed California foster family until authorities can determine where she finally will live, Los Angeles County sheriff’s Capt. Patrick Maxwell said.

He had no immediate word on how the girl was acclimating after being taken weeping last week from the home of a Phoenix couple who run a palm-reading business.

The family called her Sandra.

“She has been told what her birth name was. She is aware,” Maxwell said. “She actually likes the name Amber.”

County child welfare officials have provided the girl with a therapist, he said.

“No matter what these people were in Arizona, to this little girl, they were the only family she knew,” Maxwell said. “In her eyes, she was taken from her mother and father, and a brother and a sister.

“We do feel bad about that, but we have to remove her from that house to make sure that nothing else was going on,” he added. “They had a missing child for almost 7 years and we have to look at the full circumstances.”

The Phoenix couple, who have not been accused of a crime, said they got the girl from her biological grandmother and didn’t know she had been kidnapped, their attorney John Blischak said.

However, the couple lied to investigators, falsely claiming at first they had adopted the girl, Maxwell said.

The couple had kept her out of school in an attempt to hide her, and when police arrived, the purported mother tried to hide Amber in a bathroom shower under a pile of clothes and towels, investigators said.

While the home was clean and Amber seemed healthy, she cannot read because of her lack of schooling.

“I don’t think they had her best interests,” Maxwell said.

Blischak said the girl was kept out of school because the family didn’t have the necessary paperwork to enroll her.

“The baby was brought to them. The baby was not abused,” Blischak said. “It’s a very dramatic event for the quasi-mother.”

Bill John, who acted as the girl’s grandfather in Phoenix, told the Arizona Republic the family probably will petition authorities to allow them to take the girl back.

“It’s going to be hard, but we’ll try,” John said. “After several years, it’s difficult — the bond between a mother and child is unbreakable.”

It was unclear how long Amber will remain in foster care.

Privacy laws prevent officials from commenting on the specifics of a case or even confirming whether a child is in county custody, said Nishith Bhatt, a spokesman for the county Department of Children and Family Services.

In general, the county places children in foster care while it tries to find appropriate relatives or extended family members to care for them. Failing that, adoption becomes an option, Bhatt said.

However, many children remain in foster care for several years. Sheriff’s investigators have asked child welfare officials in Arizona to look into the status of the other two children in the family, a boy around 18 and an infant girl, Maxwell said.

“We’re not accusing them of anything. But we’d be remiss if we didn’t look into it,” he said.

Amber was 1 when she was abducted from her foster parents on Sept. 21, 2003, by juvenile relatives during a supervised visit to a restaurant in the Los Angeles suburb of Norwalk.

Investigators have not been able to contact the original foster parents, Maxwell said. The whereabouts of the girl’s biological mother and father also are unclear.

Two relatives spent time in juvenile camp for the abduction. Maxwell said the motive for the abduction remained under investigation.

Investigators were trying to discover how Amber wound up in Arizona. They were expected to present their the case to prosecutors by early next week, Maxwell said.

While the two relatives already have served time for Amber’s abduction, others possibly involved in the crime could face charges ranging from kidnapping to child concealment and conspiracy, Maxwell said.

Arizona officials could consider filing charges against the Phoenix couple for failing to put the girl in school, Maxwell said.