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Grants Pass kidnapping couple seek unborn child By CHRISTY KARRAS Brian and Ruth Christine, the Grants Pass couple jailed for allegedly kidnapping their three oldest children at gunpoint a month ago, will fight the state for their unborn fifth child. Ruth Christine is being held in Missoula, Mont., and is expected to give birth within a week. Brian Christine is in jail in Billings, Mont. A hearing to determine whether the Christines' rights will be permanently terminated is set for the middle of this month. It is unclear whether the Christines will be back in Oregon by then, said Patricia Feeny, a spokeswoman for the Oregon Office of Services to Children and Family. The couple had refused help from court-appointed attorneys but have now hired an Idaho lawyer, Edgar J. Steele, who says Oregon has overstepped its bounds and should stay out of the decision on what should happen to the Christines' fifth child. "Oregon has made it clear they want to seize that child," Steele said. "How do they possibly justify exercising jurisdiction over an unborn baby, and especially outside the state?" Feeny said the state generally gets custody of children born in jail. "It's a safety issue. You can't have children being raised in prison," she said. "In terms of the steps we've taken, that's just the process of taking care of children who need to be taken care of." Steele said the Christines want the child to go to its paternal grandmother or be adopted by a family friend in Montana. "She's willing to give up the child because she thinks the child's best interests would be served by keeping the child out of the state's hands," Steele said. Steele said state welfare workers told Ruth Christine the baby would be taken from her immediately after its birth. "This has her very stressed out, as you can imagine," he said. "Where do you get off saying something like this to a pregnant woman?" The kidnapping came as authorities were moving to permanently terminate the Christines' parental rights and prosecute them for their treatment of the girls. On Aug. 1, following a supervised visit with the children, the couple and a friend followed the van carrying the three girls and state welfare workers as the children were being returned to a foster home. When the welfare workers stopped to use a restroom near Roseburg, Brian Christine allegedly put a gun to one caseworker's head, then drove away in the state van with the girls. Police arrested them in Montana several days later, and the children were returned to their foster family in Oregon. The unborn child could go to family or be adopted after the state determines what is in its best interest, Feeny said. Oregon officials are working with their Montana counterparts to determine where the child will go, she said. Oregon took custody of the three girls - Bethany, 6, Lydia, 4, and Miriam, 3 - a year before the kidnapping after finding them emaciated and dehydrated while living with their parents in a converted city bus in Grants Pass. A fourth daughter, 11-month-old Olivia, was born a few days later and placed in her grandmother's care in Indiana, where she remains. Anti-government critics have embraced the Christines and their cause. Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.