Sheriff: Race a factor in kidnap case

Sheriff: Race a factor in kidnap case
By KATHARINE WEBSTER, Associated Press Writer

SALEM, N.H. - A Maine couple accused of tying up their 19-year-old daughter, throwing her in their car and driving her out of state to get an abortion were upset because the baby's father is black, a Maine sheriff said Tuesday.

Katelyn Kampf, who is white, told Cumberland County Sheriff Mark Dion that her mother "was pretty irate at the fact that the child's father was black, and she had made a number of disparaging remarks about that," he said.

Katelyn Kampf escaped Friday at a Salem shopping center and called police, who arrested her parents, Nicholas Kampf, 54, and Lola, 53, both real estate developers from North Yarmouth, Maine.

The Kampfs were apparently taking their daughter to New York to try to force her to get an abortion there, police said.

The parents were arraigned Monday on kidnapping charges. The judge set bail at $100,000 each and ordered the Kampfs to have no contact with their daughter. They posted bail Tuesday afternoon.

If convicted of kidnapping, the Kampfs face 7 1/2 to 15 years in prison. Dion said he expects to bring charges in Maine also, after investigators consult with the district attorney Wednesday.

Defense attorney Mark Sisti said Tuesday that a sworn statement by Salem police who interviewed both Katelyn Kampf and her parents said nothing about the father's race.

"This whole race-card thing is ridiculous and objectionable," said Sisti, who represented both of the Kampfs for their arraignment Monday, but is now representing only Lola Kampf. "There wasn't any mention in the sworn affidavit to the court about race being a factor in any way, shape or form."

Sisti also maintained there was no evidence a kidnapping had taken place in New Hampshire. The sworn affidavit said Katelyn described talking cordially with her parents during the trip from Maine.

But Salem Police prosecutor Ryan McFarland said in court Monday the Kampfs had their passports, rope, a rifle and ammunition in the car. He argued they posed a danger if released and could flee the country.

Dion said Katelyn Kampf told him her parents got upset when she called them Thursday night and told them she was pregnant. The Kampfs had met her boyfriend before and been friendly, but the pregnancy apparently "changed the dynamic," he said.

Katelyn Kampf said her mother "kept referring to the baby as a thing, as 'It,' and there were other comments made," he said.

They invited Katelyn, who is living in Portland with her boyfriend's mother, Peggy Johnson, to come to their house Friday morning. Dion would not say whether the Kampfs were already prepared to abduct their daughter when she arrived.

In a court affidavit, Salem Police Officer Sean Marino wrote that Katelyn told him her parents "chased her out into the yard, grabbed and tied her hands and feet together." Her father carried her to the car and they headed to New Hampshire, he wrote.

Katelyn Kampf escaped from her parents in Salem after persuading them to untie her so she could use a Kmart bathroom, police said. After her father went into the men's room, she ran to a nearby Staples store and used her father's cell phone, which she had swiped, to call 911, police said.

The boyfriend, 22-year-old Reme Johnson, last week began serving a 6-month sentence for theft at the Androscoggin County Jail in Auburn, Maine. He also has previous felony convictions for burglary and receiving stolen property, the Portland Press Herald reported. He is also a self-styled hip-hop artist who has gone by the name Young Merk.

Authorities in Maine said the parents apparently thought that, in light of their daughter's stage of pregnancy and the different abortion laws in each state, the abortion should be performed in New York. It was unclear how many weeks pregnant she was.