No Jail Time for Parents in Daughter's Abduction
Katelyn Kampf, 20, was disappointed that her parents won't be serving time.
Oct. 13, 2007 — -- Less than an hour after listening to her parents plead guilty to their role in a bizarre kidnapping case, 20-year-old Katelyn Kampf vowed she would neither forgive nor forget what they did to her.
"I want to tell them how much they hurt me … and how angry I am. I've never heard my mom say she was sorry, ever," she said.
The case that has been called "an American family tragedy" began one morning September 2006, in North Yarmouth, Maine. Katelyn Kampf had just told her parents she was pregnant by her boyfriend, Reme Johnson, and had decided to keep the baby.
"They said, 'it's either abortion or adoption,'" she said.
Kampf said she got into a heated argument with her parents and contends that her mother held her down and spit on her and that her father "tackled her like a football player" when she left the house. They bound her and threw her in a car, Kampf said, in an effort to drive to New York and force her to have an abortion. She managed to escape in Salem, N.H., and call the police.
"After that I hoped I would never see them again," said Katelyn Kampf.
But she did see her parents again, 13 months later in a Maine courtroom.
In a plea agreement with the district attorney's office, reached over Katelyn Kampf's objections, her parents pled guilty to misdemeanor assault charges and disorderly conduct. Felony kidnapping charges were dropped, and the Kampfs will not serve any jail time.
In court, her father Nicholas Kampf said, "The whole experience has been a sad ordeal. We as a family have lost so much … I am sorry."
Lola Kampf also read from a prepared statement: "We have all made some bad choices in the past, and we will have to live with them. But we must believe with our hearts and soul that time will heal the wounds they have caused."
But there was little evidence of any healing today. Neither one of the Kampf parents looked at their daughter or new grandson during the hour-long hearing. And Katelyn Kampf left the courtroom, crying, shortly after her parents arrived. She returned but then broke down and buried her face in her hands as she listened to her mother speak.
