FBI ARRESTS WOMAN ON MONTANA CHARGE

Associated Press

Jackie Stoll Nemelka has been arrested by FBI agents on a fugitive warrant from Montana where she and her husband, Christopher, are charged with parental kidnapping.The action came as the couple hoped their legal problems were winding down.

Jackie Nemelka was arrested Thursday at the bus where the family has been living in Salt Lake City. She was arraigned before a federal magistrate and released on her own recognizance.

Christopher Nemelka previously surrendered on the kidnapping charge in Ravalli County, Mont., and was released.

The family has been living as fugitives since Nemelka took his son from Montana's Division of Family Services on June 13.

Three days earlier, his ex-wife, Paula Blades Ladenburg, had taken her and Nemelka's children from Jackie Nemelka's home in Victor, Mont.

After a chase, officers took the children, Joshua, then 5, and Brittany, then 7, into protective custody.

The Ladenburgs accused the Nemelkas of abuse and neglect and obtained a court order to place the children into protective custody.

Christopher Nemelka had been granted custody in the couple's 1986 divorce in Utah.

Three days after the children were placed in protective custody, Nemelka entered the Family Services building and took the boy. He said he did not take the girl because she wanted to stay with her mother.

After two months of hiding in Oregon, Idaho and Utah, Nemelka tired of the fugitive life and decided to turn himself in.

Meanwhile, Paula Ladenburg sought custody in civil court and it was granted by 3rd District Judge David Young.

Nemelka returned the boy to his mother and surrendered to authorities in Montana, where he spent a month in jail.

He said he has given up hope of regaining custody.

"I won't see Josh and Brittany until they're 18 - old enough to search for their real father," he said.