GUATEMALA CITY — For 14 months, Ana Escobar studied the tiny fingers of every passing baby, searching for a girl with pinkies that curved gracefully outward, just like those of her missing daughter.
Then one day she saw her, in the arms of a foster mother helping process her adoption by an Indiana couple: A straight-haired toddler who appeared to be a stranger, except for her unmistakable fingers.
“I was in shock. I could not move. I could not do anything,” Escobar said.
DNA tests eventually proved what Escobar already knew: The girl was her daughter, taken at gunpoint in March 2007, when she was just 6 months old.
Esther Sulamita is the first stolen Guatemalan baby found through a challenge of the mother-and-child DNA test results that are supposed to guarantee the legitimacy of each adoption.
She probably won’t be the last. Jorge Meng, spokesman for the attorney general’s office, said officials suspect more cases will be found because the lawyers in Esther’s case have vouched for documents in dozens of other pending adoptions as well as many more involving children now growing up as Americans.
Authorities issued arrest warrants for a doctor, two lawyers and two others in Esther’s case. Authorities suspect they could find more than a dozen other stolen babies in their review of 2,286 pending U.S. adoptions.
Even some completed adoptions are being questioned: At least two are under investigation, said Jaime Tecu, a former prosecutor who is leading the Guatemalan National Adoption Council’s review.
“After this, we are ordering DNA tests for all children whose mothers present credible indications that they were abducted, and we are asking parents of those two babies in the U.S. to voluntarily submit DNA tests of their adoptive children,” said Elizabeth Hernandez, council president.
Guatemalan adoption officials say there is no evidence the Indiana couple knew the baby they were trying to adopt was stolen.
Escobar’s nightmare began the morning of March 26, 2007. She was tending her family’s small shoe store north of Guatemala City when a gunman and three others arrived and locked her in a storage room. When she finally got out, the baby and a few pairs of shoes were missing.
She immediately began searching hospitals, orphanages and police stations, obsessed with finding her daughter. When the baby’s father did little to help, she accused him of being involved. Prosecutors investigated but found no evidence.
She pushed on. She haunted adoption agencies, armed with a tattered picture of her daughter.
It was in the Adoption Council’s lobby that she spotted Esther. A child with curved pinkies.
At that time, Esther was officially Susy Amarilis Fernandez Molina. Her case file showed no evidence of fraud.
A DNA test proved Escobar right.
Knowing she finally had her daughter back was the happiest moment of Escobar’s life, but there are cruel reminders of everything she lost. She still has almost no information about what happened to her child for more than a year.
She suspects Esther may have been abused.
“She will not take toys, and when you lift your hand as if to hit her, she cowers and runs away,” Escobar said.
Esther does have moments, though, when events of the past year melt away. At a park, the toddler chased a cousin and squealed with delight.
All the while, Escobar kept a close watch.
