First child saved by an Amber Alert has this cool connection to kidnapper’s prosecutor
When new felony prosecutor Robb Catalano chose Rae-Leigh Bradbury’s kidnapping case from a mountain of third-degree felonies he might prosecute, he had no idea how important this particular one would become — to him or to the cause of missing and exploited children.
Although he wasn’t yet a parent then, in 1999, Catalano found the case compelling.
“The relationship between parent and child is so special,” Catalano, now a father of three, told me. “You don’t really realize how quickly that can all go away.”
Bradbury was only eight weeks old when her mom, Patricia A. Sokolowski, left her with a babysitter at their Arlington home, only to later return and find no babysitter and no baby.
In the ensuing hours, a frantic police search employed a relatively new and yet unproven mechanism — the Amber Alert. It produced a tip that led officers to the car where Bradbury was found, soiled and dehydrated but safe.
Bradbury had spent the night with her babysitter in a crack house in Dallas. It was no small miracle that she was recovered so quickly and unscathed.
Her rescue was a vindication of the system that had brought her home safe. Indeed, she is the first child recovered through use of an Amber Alert.
But as Catalano recalls, at the time of the trial, the media weren’t yet quite convinced of the alert’s role in the outcome. “There was debate over whether or not the law was used properly or too early,” he said. “The whole Amber Alert system was being put on trial.”
Catalano won his case. He wonders, though, had the outcome had been different, if Amber Alerts would have progressed to their current rate of national and even international use and recognition.
Thanks to his legal work, it would seem the system won in the court of public opinion.
The biggest winner of all, of course, was Bradbury, now 22 and a legal intern to a Tarrant County state district judge — Robb Catalano.
Bradbury recalls her childhood ordeal with relative detachment.
She was, after all, only an infant.
“At first it was a burden,” she said, referring to her frequent retellings of the case in the media and appearances on behalf of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. “I would speak about myself like I was a different girl.”
But over time, as Bradbury has met other survivors and parents of victims, she has come to understand the depth of emotion involved and the measure of healing required for anyone connected to a case such as hers.
“I just feel grateful,” she told me, “and I’m glad that my case wasn’t a bad one. I wasn’t harmed or exploited.”
That was unfortunately not the case for 9-year-old Amber Hagerman whose kidnapping and murder in Arlington in 1996 was the catalyst for the creation of the Amber Alert system.
Since its inception, the partnership of law enforcement and media to inform the public of serious child abductions has helped recover more than 1,064 children, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
The plaintive and haunting connection between Bradbury and Hagerman, whose cases occurred in neighboring towns isn’t lost on Bradbury, either.
While her rescue may have occurred without use of the Amber Alert, it was critical to her successful recovery.
That certainly means something to Bradbury who has always felt a connection to Hagerman. “I’ve always said that she was my guardian angel,” she said.
Her experience has also drawn her to the legal field, with a particular interest in working with victims of trafficking and exploitation.
She’s getting a sense of what that would entail in Catalano’s chambers.
Catalano, who reconnected with Bradbury’s mother on social media long after he prosecuted her kidnapper, has followed her story for years.
Sokolowski and Bradbury even agreed to appear on a campaign mailer for Catalano when he first ran for the bench.
After graduating from UT-Austin, Bradbury called him to express an interest in learning more about the law, and he was glad to oblige. He even introduced her to the judge (now retired) who sentenced her kidnapper.
“She always grew up knowing this was part of her history,” Catalano said.
And while he couldn’t have anticipated it when he first opened her case file all those years ago, it’s now part of his history, too.
