Former Wheaton woman pleads guilty to abducting her daughter in 2017
A woman accused of kidnapping her daughter and found almost six years later because of a crime TV show, pleaded guilty Monday morning to child abduction.
Heather Unbehaun was due to have a jury trial start Monday. On Friday afternoon, it appeared the trial would happen, as she was arraigned and entered a plea of “not guilty.”
But as potential jurors waited in a lounge to be questioned, Unbehaun changed her plea.
On Friday, Unbehaun lost a motion she filed to replace her attorney, whom she called ineffective. Kane County Judge David Kliment also prohibited Unbehaun and her attorneys from arguing that the custody orders from March 2017 and July 2017 were invalid and unconstitutional.
On Monday, Assistant State’s Attorney David Belshan told Kliment that the girl’s father, who lives in South Elgin, had primary custody of the girl, and Unbehaun had visitation. That included a July 3, 2017, order by a family court judge.
After an overnight visit, Unbehaun was supposed to return the girl to her father on July 5, 2017.
But when the father went to pick her up at Unbehaun’s home in Wheaton, where she was living with her father, she and the child were not there. Unbehaun’s parents told him they did not know where she was.
According to Beltran, Unbehaun took the girl to Georgia. Around 2018, they moved to southern Oregon, where they lived until 2022.
Unbehaun was arrested in March 2023 in Asheville, North Carolina.
A worker at a store recognized them from a television show. The case had been featured on “In Pursuit With John Walsh.”
Unbehaun has been prohibited from seeing the girl, who is now 17, while the criminal case was going on.
Unbehaun remains free on bond and GPS monitoring, awaiting sentencing. Her next court date is Oct. 8.
She could be sentenced to probation, conditional discharge, or up to 3 years in prison.
She declined to comment after the hearing, preferring to wait until after she is sentenced.
Unbehaun has posted on the “Justice for Heather and Kayla Unbehaun” Facebook page for the last few years, contending that the girl’s father was emotionally abusive to her and the girl, that the judicial system in Kane County was corrupt, and that she was denied her right to a speedy trial.
In an April 4 post, she wrote that a Kane County family court judge “illegally gave my daughter's (in my opinion and experience — abusive) father full custody. To protect her, I fled with her. I was arrested in 2023. The Kane County Court corruption continues, and is keeping us apart.”