Her parents divorced before she was six. She stayed with her mother who did everything she could to convince Alexia O’Malley that her father didn’t care about her and that she didn’t want to know him. Alexia’s mother removed all traces of her father from the house. Over the years, she prevented any contact between father and daughter, even to the extent of returning all his cards and letters.
But that didn’t stop Alexia from wanting her father. So when she turned 18, she moved out of her mother’s Pocono, Pennsylvania house and in with her boyfriend. She also started trying to find her dad whose last name she didn’t even know. Stymied in her own efforts, she contacted the TV reality show “The Locator” whose motto is “You can’t find peace until you find all the pieces.”
Alexia told show personnel “I’m looking for my dad. I haven’t seen him since I was six. My mom hides him from me and doesn’t talk to me about him. It’s not fair to me.”
The show’s investigators located Alexia’s dad, John Keurerleber, an hour away in New Jersey and they were reunited with tears and hugs.
It’s another story of a mother determined to separate a father from his child and the child from her father. Why she did it, we’ll probably never know, but the mother’s desire for exclusive contact with- and control over- the child is clear. Unlike so many of these stories, though, this one looks like it has a happy ending. Read about it here (Pocono Record, 3/28/09).