Reasonable Mother Kidnaps Her Own Daughter to Prevent Vaccination

After evading arrest for more than a year, Megan Everett, 23, has been caught and charged with kidnapping her 3-year-old daughter Lilly. Now, you might ask, “Why the hell would a mother kidnap her own daughter?” The totally rational answer: to keep her daughter from being vaccinated.

Everett stole her daughter away in May 2014, after Lilly’s father, Robert Baumann, voiced his intention to enroll her in preschool. Everett, who shared custody with Baumann, wanted Lilly to be homeschooled in order to exert more control over her education. She left a note for her boyfriend, Carlos Lesters, explaining her reasons for leaving their home in Sunrise, Florida without warning:

“ You are a great dad…If I let them take her and vaccinate her and brainwash her, I wouldn’t be doing what’s right. I cannot let a judge tell me how my daughter should be raised. We will miss you. But I had to leave.”

Yikes. Baumann also explained to the Sun Sentinel that Everett was concerned about the education her daughter would receive outside of the home, that, in fact, it would be too racially inclusive. “She didn’t want Lilly to learn about black history,” he said, “She just wanted her to learn about the Confederacy.”

But with the help of the CNN program “The Hunt,” Everett and Lilly were discovered four hours from home, in Palatka, Florida. The Washington Post reports, “[After] the show aired Sunday, a viewer recognized Everett and Lilly as tenants of a rental property in Palatka…The woman notified CNN, which then contacted the FBI.”

Everett now faces a slew of charges—among them kidnapping and interference with custody—and Baumann is reunited with Lilly. “It’s so great, I’m so relieved,” said Baumann to the Sun Sentinel, “It just kind of stunned me, I felt like I was running around with my head chopped off.”

Here’s to vaccinations, non-racist education, and not kidnapping your own children.