Woman charged with kidnapping mother, 95

JOPLIN, Mo. -- A California woman is facing kidnapping and other charges in Missouri after taking her 95-year-old mother away from Jasper County custody.

Delores Forste says her mother, Emma France, formerly of Carthage, Mo., was hospitalized against her will and then made a ward of the county public administrator's office.

The 67-year-old Forste was arrested Tuesday at her home in Needles, Calif., and is being held in the San Bernardino County jail. Her husband, Steve Forste, said authorities told him they plan to extradite her back to Missouri.

"She'll be spending Thanksgiving in jail," he told The Joplin Globe.

Besides kidnapping, Delores Forste is charged with interference with custody and financial exploitation.

France, who now lives in an apartment near her daughter, told The Globe that the allegations against her daughter are "crazy" and that she is not a victim of either kidnapping or financial exploitation.

Her daughter and son-in-law "are paying my rent and buying my food," France said.

France was made a ward of Rita Hunter, the Jasper County public administrator, after a May 16 court hearing. France said she was not allowed to attend the hearing or protest the appointment.

Forste has said she was not notified until after the fact about her mother being hospitalized or assigned to the public administrator's custody.

She and her husband said they traveled to Carthage after they couldn't get her mother on the phone. They learned France had been placed in the hospital.

They visited her and left, but say France was so upset that they returned and packed up her things.

The couple say they notified the public administrator and had asked for France's Social Security checks to be forwarded to them in California.

Court records show that France was brought to the public administrator's attention in April after large withdrawals were made from her account at a Carthage bank. According to the records, France was a victim of several lottery scams, had withdrawn more than $40,000 from her account and was being harassed by scammers who wanted more money.

An emergency guardianship was ordered April 16.

Court records say Forste was estranged from her mother and had allegedly taken financial advantage of her.