Boy abducted to Mexico by stepfather found, returned to U.S.

CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. — A 9-year-old boy has been returned to his mother six months after he was abducted to Mexico by his stepfather.

The Leaf-Chronicle reported 56-year-old William King, of Clarksville, won temporary custody of the child by falsely claiming the mother tried to prostitute the boy through a Craigslist ad.

Because Jenny Ponce was living in Bluffton, S.C., at the time, the South Carolina attorney general’s office investigated the allegations. It found the Craigslist ad had actually been posted from King’s computer in Clarksville.

In light of that information, a Tennessee judge ordered custody returned to the mother on Feb. 27. While Ponce was waiting for the papers to be processed, King rushed to the boy’s school, taking him out of class and fleeing.

A nationwide, then international, search ensued. Tennessee Bureau of Investigation agents worked with U.S. Marshals and Mexican authorities to locate King on the outskirts of Mexico City on Thursday.

The boy was flown from Mexico to Bluffton where he was reunited with his mother Friday.

King was flown to Atlanta where Tennessee authorities are expected to pick him up Monday. He has outstanding warrants in Montgomery County for especially aggravated kidnapping, false report and custodial interference.

In an email to the paper last month, King insinuated Ponce had used him to get residency in the U.S. and said once she got residency, she left town with the boy, and he couldn’t find them for 10 months.

“I am not a criminal,” he wrote in the email. “I am a father protecting my son.”

Ponce’s attorney, Pamela Blackshire, said King is not the boy’s father, but Ponce and her son lived with him when the boy was an infant. Police reports refer to King as a stepparent.