Pair thought girl ‘sent from God’
Couple didn’t know 7-year-old was abducted
PHOENIX – A 7-year-old girl who was snatched from California as a toddler and raised in Arizona is a typical young child who loves YouTube and pop music star Justin Bieber, the man who raised her said Monday.
Peter Gutierrez, of Phoenix, said he and his wife, Shirley Frank, loved the girl and took excellent care of her.
Authorities last week took Amber Nicklas from the home of Gutierrez and Frank, the only parents she ever knew, and placed her in an undisclosed California foster home until officials determine a permanent placement.
“We believe she was sent from God, because we love children,” Gutierrez told the Associated Press. “We are not bad people. We are not bad parents.”
Gutierrez said he hopes to someday get legal custody of the girl, whom he calls Sandra. It was unclear if that is an option. Gutierrez said his family wasn’t involved in the girl’s abduction. He added it is not uncommon in their Gypsy culture for families to take care of children born to other couples.
The pair have not been charged with a crime, though authorities say charges are possible.
Gutierrez and his father, Bill John, said Amber’s biological grandmother brought her to Phoenix, said her name was Sandra, and asked the couple to watch her for a short time.
Gutierrez and John said the family never knew the biological aunts who orchestrated Amber’s abduction from her foster parents at a restaurant outside Los Angeles on Sept. 21, 2003.
Los Angeles County sheriff’s Capt. Patrick Maxwell said the motive for the abduction remains under investigation.
Gutierrez and Frank have two biological children, a 20-year-old son and 4-month-old daughter.
“No matter what these people were in Arizona, to this little girl, they were the only family she knew,” Maxwell said. “In her eyes, she was taken from her mother and father, and a brother and a sister.