Headline-grabbing news stories from the past year involving custody and child-related legal matters have touched on the serious and critical issues of parental kidnapping, co-parent violence, and murder. The circumstances in these cases are tragic. However, they each contain important lessons for us about heeding red flags in family matters and understanding what we can do to help stop cases like these from happening again.

A Parental Kidnapping Case That Was Lost in Translation

In one of these notable cases, last month, former Edison, N.J. resident, Amitkumar Kanubhai Patel, was convicted of parental kidnapping after an almost four-year legal battle. At the heart of this case were Patel‘s manipulations in putting his kidnapping plans into motion.