Haitian man's grief started with son's kidnapping

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — For most Haitians, their current state of extreme pain and suffering started in the moments following the horrific Jan. 12 earthquake. But for a counselor in the Haitian LDS Mission presidency, Guesno Mardy, heartbreak began Dec. 6, the day his 2-year-old son, Gardy, was kidnapped.

The earthquake and its aftershocks have only escalated his uncertainties and delayed any hopeful resolution.

Over the past six weeks, Mardy has ridden the wildest of the proverbial roller coasters — beginning with the kidnapping of his son.

Then came the earthquake and its immediate impact on his family and his two orphanages. He watched the building that housed his administration offices and employees — including his wife, Marjorie — collapse with the victims inside. He worried about the condition of his 225 "children," orphans cared for by his Foyer de Sion adoption agency in Port-au-Prince and Leogane.

His wife was spared, despite being caught in a collapsed building. All the children at Foyer de Sion are safe and accounted for.

And yet 2-year-old Gardy remains missing, with the date of his third birthday, Jan. 25, quickly approaching.

"It will be very hard that day if we don't get him," Mardy said. "It will be very sad for us."

Shortly after his toddler disappeared, Mardy received a phone call demanding $150,000 for the safe return of his son. The call came from a phone number that he recognized as belonging to a former employee from several years back, but it wasn't the voice of the man who used to work for him.

Over three days, Mardy scrambled to raise a meager fraction of the money — just $4,000 — admitting that $150,000 is an impossible sum for him to ever consider gathering.

Since Gardy is also an American citizen, the FBI was called in and spent a week in Haiti following leads and interviewing the former employee, who was considered a prime suspect. They turned the man over to Haitian authorities and left, while the man was imprisoned during the ongoing investigation.

But the earthquake damaged prisons, and many prisoners either escaped or were released from unstable buildings. The suspect in the Mardy case is back free on the island, and the priority given the investigation by the police dropped astronomically given the death, starvation and thirst blanketing the island nation in the quake's aftermath.

And still no word about Gardy.