`Baby Richard': Saga Of Adopted Love Child -- Biological Father Wins Custody Battle

"You are hereby ordered and directed to surrender forthwith custody of the child known as Baby Boy Richard, also known as Baby Boy Janikova, to petitioner Otakar Kirchner."

-Ruling of the Illinois Supreme Court

CHICAGO - Charles Dickens would have understood it immediately, the reality of life reduced to the abstract language of law, its very brevity masking the tragedy at the heart of the case.

He would have made it into a book.

The story would be filled with characters reflecting the best and the worst of the human condition.

The birth father, Otakar Kirchner, would be there, along with the baby's mother, Daniela Janikova; Maria, another woman he lived with; the Parents Doe, who adopted the boy; many attorneys cast in various roles; bureaucrats; the media; distant legislators; a governor; and, of course, judges.

At the center of it all would be the little boy.

This is where the fantasy novel yields to reality, at a place called The Elkhorn Inn in Cicero, Ill., a favorite drinking spot for Eastern European immigrants.

It was late 1988.

Daniela Janikova, 21, herself so new to the country that she spoke no English, served drinks there. Otakar Kirchner, 32, a violinist and immigrant from Bratislava, in the former Czechoslovakia, who earned his money managing a restaurant in Chicago, was captivated by her.

She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, he recalled, but distant. To impress her, he often ordered Coca-Colas, paid for them with $5 and left the change as a tip.

One of the big complications was Maria Zuzicova, also from Bratislava, who was living with Otakar even as he was buying Cokes and trying to get closer to the willowy blonde with the pale blue eyes who waited on customers at The Elkhorn.

Maria, it was assumed by friends and neighbors, was the love of Otakar's life. There would eventually be a marriage and a family. That was the assumption. The reality was that Maria, who had known Otakar for years and came to America to live with him, could not have children.

Otakar wanted a son, people who know him say, because he dreamed of building a better relationship with the child than the one he had had with his own father.

But that could never happen with Maria.

"For him, life without children has no meaning. It's empty," says Otakar's father. "That's why he went with Daniela, to have a child."

She was 11 years his junior, and blessed with beauty and grace, almost everything he was not. The relationship blossomed, then heated up after she quit her job at The Elkhorn and moved to Kenessey's Restaurant in Chicago, where Otakar was the manager. He was still living with Maria but teaching Daniela English after work.

Maria confronted him about his relationship with Daniela and told him to move out.

Daniela's plan was to marry Otakar. They went to City Hall to get a marriage license just after Daniela learned of her pregnancy. Nothing happened, and it expired in the fall. Otakar now says the two were just too busy to get married.

But Maria was visiting Otakar at the restaurant, and they were spending hours on the phone. When Maria got a new boyfriend, Otakar became jealous and possessive.

Daniela was full of anxiety in her eighth month of pregnancy when Otakar went to his hometown, Bratislava, to visit his dying grandmother. There were daily phone calls until Daniela learned that Maria had gone to Bratislava with Otakar.

Otakar denied that he had been seeing Maria and begged Daniela to stay at the apartment, at least until the baby was born. He says he visited Daniela's parents and got their permission to marry her.

But when he came back to Chicago, the apartment was empty. The old marriage license was ripped into tiny pieces on the dining room table.

Daniela had gone to the Greenhouse, a shelter for battered women. She told a social worker there that she was pregnant and wanted to hide from her fiance because he wanted to take her baby away.

It was the beginning of a deception that was to play out as the pregnancy advanced and the circumstances that would lead to the birth of Baby Boy Richard became much more complicated.

Daniela was virtually alone, though, a world away from the family that could console her, give her advice, embrace her.

"She cried a lot of the time, just because of the pregnancy and not knowing what to do," said Jenny Olesky, one of her friends. "He was the only one she had."

There she sat among the beaten wives at the shelter. Otakar, she now says, had not abused her, but she didn't want to tell that to the social worker because she was afraid she would be thrown out of the shelter.

Then Daniela reached a point of clarity. If Otakar was going out with another woman, then he shouldn't care at all about what she did or didn't do. Furthermore, how much could he care about the baby if he didn't care about the mother?

"Like he hurt me," she said, "I'm going to hurt him."

THE ADOPTION connection came from the beauty school where Daniela was taking courses. Roberta Scholes was a teacher at the school. Edwin Shapiro was an attorney who helped her set up a beauty shop. Scholes told Shapiro a student wanted to put a baby up for adoption, and the lawyer recalled the woman who is now known in the case as "Jane Doe."

She had been a part-time paralegal, a churchgoing Lutheran woman who already had one son and wanted another but couldn't conceive. A meeting was arranged.

Daniela asked them about their hobbies and interests and their birthdays. She seemed impressed that "John Doe" loved the outdoors and that Jane worked out of her home.

The Does asked the father's name, but she refused to disclose it.

She told them he didn't want her anymore because of the pregnancy and that he had gone on a vacation with a former girlfriend. She would not reveal the father's name to the Doe family attorney, either. She asked the attorney how she could get a fake death certificate to prove to the father the baby had died, a request that the attorney flatly refused.

"She was afraid of him," Jenny Olesky said. "She was afraid for her baby - that he would take it."

Then there was another twist.

Despite her obvious despair at being abandoned and her anger at the repeated but failed lurches toward marriage, Daniela called Otakar again, this time on Valentine's Day. They spoke for several hours a few weeks later and made arrangements to meet.

The next day, she visited him at his apartment. They watched television. They made love. He put his head on her abdomen and listened to the baby. It was the last time they would see one another before Baby Boy Richard's birth and subsequent adoption.

Within 24 hours of the lovemaking and the tender talk, Otakar drove to O'Hare International Airport to pick up Maria, who was returning from Slovakia.

Daniela found out. She told him she would never see him again.

Baby Boy Richard was born March 16 at a hospital in Elk Grove Village, Ill. Otakar called St. Joseph Hospital in Chicago several times that day, assuming Daniela would be delivering there, but she had changed hospitals to avoid him.

She went to the Cook County Department of Supportive Services to terminate her parental rights. "Wants best for the child, feels that baby needs two parents. . . . No pressure, no coercion," a social worker wrote after interviewing Daniela.

Baby Boy Richard was just four days old when the Does took him home. He slept in a crib in his own room, freshly papered with blue and gray stripes. The Does' 3-year-old son insisted on helping with the chores his new baby brother brought into the home.

The baby was entering a home, indeed a world, light years from that of his natural parents.

The Does have been friends since they were 12 years old and married in 1979. Years later, they had their first son.

When the attorney called to say he knew of a child who would be up for adoption, they thought it was nothing short of miraculous.

Not only were they getting another child, but they believed that they also were helping a woman who had been abused and abandoned.

Baby Boy Richard had a new life in a new place. In the world he left behind, things were becoming more complicated with each passing day.

First Otakar heard the baby was dead. Then he heard word at the restaurant that the baby was still alive, that it had been placed for adoption. By this time, he had turned back to Maria. They celebrated.

He resolved to get the baby back.

On May 12, Mother's Day, two months after Baby Boy Richard's birth, Maria recalled, she and Otakar walked into his apartment and found Daniela asleep in the bedroom. Her belongings were in the trunk of her car. She told Otakar she would tell him where the baby was if he promised to leave Maria forever.

Maria quickly left.

The alliance between Otakar and Daniela was reborn. Otakar went to see attorney Loren Heinemann, who usually handles family law and divorce matters.

Heinemann thought it would be simple. A blood test would establish that Otakar was the father.

And so it did, seven months after Otakar and Daniela reconciled.

In the meantime, Otakar and Daniela had married and moved to a larger apartment so there would be room for the baby. But the Does were not about to give up Richard, who was now nine months old. Daniela, the Does said, had convinced them that Otakar was abusive and unfaithful and a heavy gambler.

They asked a judge to find Otakar unfit and finalize the adoption.

The Does built their case on an obscure section of Illinois adoption law - never legally tested - that requires a parent to express interest in the child within 30 days of birth. Otherwise, the parent can lose parental rights.

After a two-day trial, Judge Eugene Wachowski labeled Daniela's lies as "unconscionable behavior." He said Otakar's ignorance of the law was no excuse and approved the Does' adoption of the boy, who was now 14 months old.

Otakar appealed.

THE TWO-YEAR legal battle that followed all but consumed everyone involved. The court system even took away the child's identity.

Illinois Appellate Judge Dom Rizzi chose the name "Baby Boy Richard" because his law clerk, named Richard, walked into Rizzi's chambers at the instant at which the judge became tired of writing "Baby Boy Janikova."

That wasn't all Rizzi did.

In upholding the lower court's findings, Rizzi ruled that once a newborn child has lived exclusively with adoptive parents for at least 18 months, a court cannot change the child's living arrangements.

On June 16, 1994, the state Supreme Court reversed the two lower-court decisions and ordered the Does to give Richard back. The high court noted Daniela's deception and invalidated the adoption.

The ruling weighed heavily on the Does, who had made him a part of their family, a child of their own. Their older son, 7 years old when the ruling came down, wept and said, "No, they can't, he's my brother."

Even though the Illinois Supreme Court ruling gave custody of Richard to his biological father, Otakar Kirchner has said it could be another two years before he has full custody, because child psychologists could recommend a slow introduction.

Meanwhile, new legislation backed by Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar has been aimed specifically at the Baby Boy Richard case and U.S. Supreme Court has refused to accept the case.

On Saturday, the Does made another unsuccessful run at the U.S. Supreme Court. Information from Associated Press is included in this report.