Woman who went missing with her three kids gets 8 months in jail

A Silverdale woman accused in April of taking her three children out of state in violation of a court order, leading authorities on a nationwide hunt, was sentenced Friday to eight months in jail and was prohibited from contacting her children for five years.

Dina Patricia Burns, 42, pleaded guilty to three counts of first-degree custodial interference, felonies.

Burns was required to bring the children back to her ex-husband on April 25 but failed to do so. After the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office publicized the case and the FBI got involved, Burns and the children were found nine days later, on May 4, aboard a Greyhound bus in Connecticut. The children’s father told law enforcement that Burns had asked for their passports.

“I didn’t know where they were, I didn’t know if they were dead,” the children’s father told Kitsap County Superior Court Judge Sally Olsen.

If not for local and federal law enforcement, he said, “I don't think I would ever see them again. And no parent should go through something like that.”

Burns, originally from Ecuador and using a Spanish interpreter, did not speak at her sentencing except to thank Judge Olsen.

The case came after a contentious divorce and child custody case, in which Judge Olsen turned over primary custody of the three young children to Burns’ ex husband, which Olsen said Friday she knew upset Burns.

“But the court found, and I continue to believe, especially in light of the criminal conduct, she has a long-term emotional … problem that gets in the way of her ability to parent,” Olsen said, calling the case “tragic.”

“She desperately, desperately needs mental health treatment,” Olsen said, adding to the children’s father: “It’s a good thing you didn’t give her those passports, we may not have seen those kids again.”

Deputy Prosecutor Anna Aruiza said whether Burns’ actions were malicious or delusional, she “sentenced her children to a lifetime of trust issues.”

“Mothers are more than wombs,” Aruiza said. “They have a responsibility to lead by example, to look after their own health, including mental health, so they can meet the needs of their children.”

Burns had faced second-degree kidnapping charges, which prosecutors walked back, but her attorney, former Bremerton City Prosecutor Gina Buskirk, said the plea agreement did not come with a bargain for a less serious offense in lieu of the kidnapping charges.

Buskirk said the Legislature did not intend for the crime of kidnapping to be used to prosecute Burns’ conduct.

Further, Buskirk said Burns had not been represented by an attorney for the civil trial that preceded the criminal case and if she had, “I think probably that could have made a difference in how things were handled.”

Hiring an attorney for divorces and child custody is often left to litigants, and the cost is out of reach for many people who need representation.

“She’s felt let down by the system, right or wrong, as a mother, that is her feeling,” Buskirk said.

Buskirk said Burns was not trying to leave the country with the children but was only trying to spend time with them.

Though Olsen ordered Burns to have no contact with her children for five years, she said that order could be modified as part of an ongoing custody case.

This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: Silverdale woman who went missing with her three kids gets 8 months