By Susan Redden
sredden@joplinglobe.com
After nearly three weeks in jail, Delores Forste is free on bond and will appear in court Dec. 26 on charges that she kidnapped her mother.
Forste, 67, was arrested Nov. 20 at her home in Needles, Calif. She was released Saturday night after a $10,000 bond was posted at the Jasper County Jail.
In a telephone interview Monday, Forste said she is staying with members of her husband’s family, Jim and Carol Eldred, in Golden City.
“I really don’t know what’s next, except that I have to be in court on Dec. 26,” she said. “There’s a long way to go, but hopefully the worst is over.”
Forste’s court date could not be confirmed Monday because court offices were closed due to the ice storm.
Forste said she was picked up last Thursday by a prisoner transportation van after waiving extradition at a hearing Nov. 28 in San Bernardino County, Calif. She had been held without bond in California.
Of her time in jail, she said, “You do what you have to do, but it was nice to sleep in an actual bed again.”
Forste was charged with kidnapping after she took her mother, Emma France, 95, formerly of Carthage, home with her in June. She also is charged with financial exploitation of the elderly and with interference with custody. France in May had been made
a ward of the Jasper County public administrator’s office.
France has challenged the charges against her daughter. She said Forste is not guilty of financial exploitation or kidnapping. She said she wanted to go to California and to get out of Jasper County after she was hospitalized and made a ward of the public administrator. She said both actions were taken against her will.
France was made a ward of the county based on testimony in court that she suffered from dementia and depression after she lost nearly $40,000 in lottery scams.
Forste has said she was not notified in advance of the hearing that made her mother a ward of the county. She said she and her husband traveled to Carthage when they could not reach France by telephone and learned from Carthage police that she was in the hospital.
France was living in senior housing near Delores Forste and her husband, Steve, in Needles. France and Steve Forste left last week, and family members are not revealing their whereabouts because they fear that Steve Forste, who faces the same Jasper County charges as his wife, also will be arrested.
“If they did that (arrested him), I don’t know what would happen to mom,” Delores Forste said.
Sandra Meeker, of Danville, Ill., a daughter of the Forstes, said she and a sister are mailing clothing and other items to her mother “since she didn’t get there with much.”
“I was hoping she could spend Christmas with us, but I’m planning to come see her, because I don’t think she can leave the county,” Meeker said.
Guardian priorities
When a guardian is appointed, the court is to consider, as first choice, any eligible person nominated by the ward; then a spouse, parent, adult child, sibling or other close relative; then any other eligible person.
Source: Missouri Revised Statutes
