Lilly Baumann, Missing for More Than a Year, to Be Featured on CNN This Weekend

Last summer, we reported on every parent's worst nightmare — a situation where one parent, in defiance of a court order, kidnaps a child, keeping the kid from the other parent. For Robert Baumann, that pretty much been his life for more than a year. In May 2014, his ex, Megan Everett, disappeared with the couple's 2-year-old, Lilly. Despite the father's best efforts, there has been no report on Everett's or Lilly's whereabouts. 

What made Baumann's case different from your standard-issue custody case was Everett's obsession with right-wing politics and her association with neo-Confederate groups across the country, a radical fringe with back-ass views and vitriol on the Civil War and the current state of Obama's American. Many, including Baumann and law enforcement, believe that the kidnapped baby and her mother have disappeared into the underground. But wherever they are, they are tucked far from sight. 

"The police haven’t had any major leads," Baumann told New Times this week. "Nothing at all. It's been kind of dead, unfortunately. I don’t know how."

But there is some new hope in the case. Earlier this year, CNN filmed an episode of John Walsh's The Hunt on Lilly's disappearance. The show is set to air this Sunday, August 2, at 9 pm EDT. The show will also be broadcast on August 7 at 9 p.m., August 9 at 11 p.m., and during The Hunt marathon on August 14. 

This is more than just good TV. The hope is that by broadcasting Lilly's story before a prime-time audience across the country, the phones will start ringing with reports on the runaway mother's whereabouts. Even old information may help police narrow their search about where Everett and Lilly have been.

Baumann has stacked a lot of chips on the hope that this will work. In truth, from day one, law enforcement hasn't tackled the kidnapping with any sense of urgency because Lilly is with her mother, despite the fact that Everett had previously put the girl in dangerous scenarios and questionable situations (just look at the picture above). 

"It's been slow-moving," Baumann admits. "Everyone says, 'She's with the mother.' Because of that, there isn't any urgency because law enforcement feels it's not a kidnapping, that it's not like [Lilly] is with a serial killer or something.

"I'm not a billionaire," Baumann says. "I've exhausted everything I have in terms of private investigators and social media, and I still don't have a clue where she is."

Anyone with information on Lilly's and Everett's whereabouts can call 1-866-THE-HUNT.