The holidays are the warm and fuzzy time of year, but for one Broward dad, it's especially tough now. Earlier this summer, we brought you the sad, frustrating story of Robert Baumann, a father who spent two years locked in a custody battle stacked against him; when he finally got his rights as a dad, his ex disappeared with his daughter, Lilly, likely into the far-right underground. Now, almost seven months later, the the two-year-old girl is still gone.
"I have my good days and my bad days," Robert told New Times this week. "I'm trying to stay positive."
Over the past two years, tensions between Baumann and his ex, Megan Everett, reached a peak after the young woman dove head-first into a gun-toting, government-hating, Confederate-lovin' fringe world. She ran with the kid after a judge split custody between the parents.
One positive development in the case came earlier in November. John Walsh, the South Floridian who turned the 1981 murder of his son into a one-man justice mission with America's Most Wanted, has decided to cover the Baumann kidnapping as part of his show The Hunt. The CNN series will feature the case in its upcoming season.
Baumann tells New Times producers for the show came down in early November. He sat for a four-hour interview about the situation; the crew also interviewed Megan's family, who have stuck by Robert since Megan ran. The father has his fingers crossed that the coverage will help spread word about Lilly nationwide. "Hopefully, that will tie the knot," he says.
The tips about Megan and Lilly have dried up recently. "There was one a couple of months ago; someone swore they saw her, and the baby had been taken by the state of Ohio," he says. "Similar age and looks, but not her."
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