Katharine Christine “Christi” Baskin (b. 1980) and Robert Maple “Bobby” Baskin (b. 1981) were abducted from their Murfreesboro, Tennessee home by their grandparents, Marvin L. Maple and Sandra K. Maple, on March 1, 1989. The Maples had been granted temporary custody of the children by Tennessee officials while charges of Satanic ritual abuse against their parents, Mark and Debbie Baskin, were investigated. After the charges were determined to be unfounded, the Maples refused to return the children and escaped to California, where they homeschooled the children to avoid detection. The Maples, who went by the aliases of John and Frances Bunting, also changed the children’s names to Jennifer and Jonathan Bunting.

The children were discovered twenty years later after Marvin Maple, unhappy with how he was represented in a newspaper article commemorating the kidnapping, confessed to a friend, who reported him to the police. Maple was originally charged with kidnapping but arranged a plea deal to plead to custodial interference and receive only four years of probation. Sandra Maple had died in March 2006.

Date: February 2, 2009
Location: San Jose, California

>