As they sat in the Rutherford County, Tennessee, courtroom on March 28, 1989, Mark and Debbie Baskin were wrestling with mixed emotions. The couple were officially exonerated of all claims of having abused their children, nine-year-old Christi and eight-year-old Bobby. In addition, the court ordered that custody of the children be returned to the Baskins and that the lawsuit against them be dismissed “with prejudice,” meaning the plaintiffs, Debbie’s mother and father, Marvin and Sandra Maple, were barred from bringing further actions against them.

In the legal sense the court’s ruling was meaningful, but in the practical sense it was hollow. Christi and Bobby Baskin were gone, having been kidnapped by their maternal grandparents. Mark and Debbie Baskin were relieved to hear the court’s rulings, but at the same time they were angry for being dragged through a witch hunt and being unjustly stripped of their children.

Twenty years after Christi and Bobby Baskin disappeared, they were found living normal lives as young adults. But for their parents, the story still does not have a fairy tale ending, and their children are adamant it never will.

A motion to dismiss the charges against Mark and Debbie Baskin was granted, but a mother-and-child reunion is more than a motion away.

Christi and Bobby Baskin

Mark and Debbie Baskin lived with their three children, nine-year-old Christi, eight-year-old Bobby, and six-year old Michael, in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, thirty miles southeast of Nashville. In 1987, Mark quit his job with an airplane company and returned to college to obtain his Master’s Degree in Theology from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, one-hundred-ninety miles from Murfreesboro.

Mark and Debbie realized they would be strained financially until they found work in Louisville. Debbie’s parents, Marvin and Sandra Maple, who also lived in Murfreesboro, suggested having Christi and Bobby stay with them until their daughter and son-in-law were settled. Mark and Debbie agreed to the arrangement. Because of Michael’s dyslexia, they decided to take him with them so he could be home-schooled by Debbie.

In January 1988, Mark, Debbie, and Michael, moved to Louisville while Christi and Bobby stayed with their grandparents in Murfreesboro. Because Mark and Debbie had trouble finding work in Louisville, Christi and Bobby stayed with their grandparents until Christmas. By the holiday season, both Mark and Debbie had found secure jobs and were settled to the point where they believed they could take their children back.

Mark, Debbie, and Michael returned to Murfreesboro for the 1988 Christmas season, expecting it to be one of the most joyous as they believed the entire family would soon be back together. Instead, the occasion was one of bitterness, setting forth a real-life family feud and a chain of events the Baskins could not have imagined.

The Baskin Family

Marvin and Sandra Maple were infuriated when Debbie told them of her intentions of taking Christi and Bobby with them to Louisville within the next few months. From that point onward, relations were strained between the Baskins and the Maples.

Christi and Bobby continued to stay with their grandparents, but by April 1988 Mark and Debbie were no longer welcome to stay at the Maples home when visiting. Debbie was about to learn the extraordinary extent to which her parents were willing to go to keep their grandchildren.

Marvin And Sandra Maple

Christi And Bobby’s Maternal Grandparents

On May 5, the Maples filed a petition for custody of Christi and Bobby, claiming Mark and Debbie had abandoned the children and that they were members of a satanic cult. The Maples also alleged their daughter and son-in-law had sexually molested Bobby in the hotel room where they were staying during their visit to Murfreesboro on April 10.

Judge Robert Corlew II granted the Maples temporary custody of Christi and Bobby. Eighteen days later, on May 23, the court upheld the ruling and the children remained in the temporary custody of the Maples.

The Maples Are Granted Custody

Of Christi and Bobby 

Mark and Debbie maintained custody of Michael.

Both the Baskins and the Maples were ordered to undergo psychological examinations while an investigation into the charges was conducted.

Michael Stays With His Parents 

When detectives interviewed Christi and Bobby, they confirmed what their grandparents had alleged but in a manner which seemed as though they had been coached.

In subsequent interviews, the children’s stories changed and became more sensationalized. To detectives and psychiatrists, it was clear they were being told what to say.

Police Conclude

The Kids Have Been Manipulated

The police investigation concluded there was no evidence to substantiate the Maples’ charges of sexual abuse and recommended that Christi and Bobby Baskin be returned to their parents. A court order was required to do so, but the dockets were full and legal wrangling delayed the case several months through the 1989 holiday season and well into the New Year.

A final hearing was scheduled for March 28, 1989, almost a year after the initial proceedings began.

Mark and Debbie Are Exonerated Of Wrongdoing

Although they had been cleared by investigators of any wrongdoing, Mark and Debbie Baskin were still allowed only intermittent visits with their children.

Debbie And Mark Are Cleared,

But They Still Do Not Have Their Kids

On March 10, eight days before the hearing, court guardian Karen Hornsby telephoned the Maples to confirm a scheduled visitation of Christi and Bobby with their parents. After failing to reach them several times, she visited the home, only to find no one there and a for sale sign in the yard.

The Children Are Gone . . .

The Maples were soon found to have sold their cars and emptied their bank accounts.

Three days later, formal kidnapping charges were filed against Marvin and Sandra Maple.

. . . And So Are The Grandparents

After the Baskins case was profiled on Unsolved Mysteries in February 1990, several viewers reported the Maples and the children had resided in Santa Clara, California. The Maples, living under the aliases Ray and Sandra Farmer, told people they were the children’s parents, whom they called Robin and Robbie.

One viewer provided pictures of Christi and Bobby taken on August 13, five months after they had been kidnapped. The photos were taken during a birthday party at the apartment complex where they were residing.

Photos Of The Children In Santa Clara

The Maples abruptly left Santa Clara with their grandchildren a couple of weeks before the Unsolved Mysteries broadcast, presumably after seeing promos of the upcoming segment on their case.

Four years later, a couple believed to be the Maples, possibly accompanied by Christi and Bobby, were spotted in an antique store across the country in Peabody, Massachusetts. Later, they were reportedly seen in Washington state and Mississippi, as well as back in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. None of these sightings, however, could be confirmed.

Over the following fifteen years, several more leads surfaced, including information that the Maples were living under the names Harvey and Joan Wilson, but none led to their location.

The Grandparents Are Charged With Kidnapping Their Grandchildren

(Christi went by her middle name. Her first name is Katharine)

 

On February 3, 2009, nearly twenty years after the Baskin children were kidnapped by their grandparents, a woman read about the case in a San Diego Union-Tribune online article. She believed a man she knew by the name of John Bunting looked similar to an age-enhanced image of Marvin Maple. The man had previously made statements to several people about being wanted for abducting his grandchildren, but they were dismissed because he was intoxicated.

Police confirmed the man was Marvin Maple and arrested him at his San Jose, California, home. He had worked for many years as a car salesman.

Under questioning, Maple said he was angered by how he and Sandra had been portrayed in the media and insisted he and his wife had abducted their grandchildren for their own safety.

Police found that Sandra Maple had lived under the name Frances Bunting. She had died in 2005.

Twenty Years Later,

Marvin Maple Is Arrested

When police arrested Marvin Maple, alias John Bunting, a young man and woman were at his home. They were confirmed to be Bobby and Christi Baskin, living under the names Jonathan and Jennifer Bunting, going by Jon and Jenny. A subsequent investigation determined they had attended college under those names.

Twenty-eight-year-old Christie Baskin, AKA Jenny Bunting, was not married and was working in nursing administration. Twenty-seven-year-old Bobby Baskin, AKA Jon Bunting, was married and the father of two children.

Christi And Bobby Are Found,

AKA Jenny and Jon Bunting

In May 2009, Marvin Maple’s attorney filed a motion contending the twenty-year-old kidnapping warrant for his client failed to state probable cause, was outside the court’s jurisdiction, and contained other legal flaws. The judge agreed and dismissed the warrant.

The seventy-two-year-old Maple then entered a “best-interest plea” of guilty to the lesser offense of custodial interference. He received four years of probation.

Plea Deal,

No Prison

After completing his probation, Marvin Maple, becoming increasingly hindered by dementia, returned to Murfreesboro, and was placed in a nursing home. Mark and Debbie say when they visited him shortly before his death at age eighty in May 2016, he asked them to take him home with them.

Debbie also says her father admitted he and her mother had made up the abuse allegations and had brainwashed Christi and Bobby into believing them. Debbie says he tearfully apologized to them but said he could not bring himself to confess to his grandchildren.

Marvin Stays Mum Till The End

Bobby and Christi Baskin, now legally known as Jon and Jenny Bunting, are emphatic that they were abused by their parents and that they will not speak to them again.

They consider their grandparents heroes for sacrificing their golden years in rescuing them.

No Family Reunion

I have not been able to find anything specifically stating so, but it does not appear that Michael Baskin ever believed he was abused by his parents and that he does not support his siblings in the dispute.

Bobby, Christi, And Michael

Mark and Debbie believe the impetus for the unfounded accusations levied against them by Debbie’s parents began in October 1986, two-and-a-half years before the Maples abducted their grandchildren.

Bobby, at the time five-years-old, told his maternal grandmother (Sandra Maple), and later his mother, of an incident involving his paternal grandfather (Mark’s father) that suggested potential sexual abuse.

Mark’s father was arrested but the case was dismissed in January 1987, after Bobby cried on the witness stand and refused to testify to the actions of his grandfather. No corroborating evidence was found to support any wrongdoing on his part.

Earlier Allegation Of Improper Actions Also Dismissed

In 1990, only a few months after the Baskin children were kidnapped, Faye Yager was charged with intimidating a child to lie about Satanism and sexual abuse in an unrelated case. The accusations made by the child were virtually similar to the unfound charges made by Marvin and Sandra Maple against Mark and Debbie Baskin. Yager was acquitted of the charges in 1992.

Investigators confirm multiple phone calls made from the Maples to Yager, an activist who ran an Atlanta based underground network hiding allegedly abused children. The calls were made in February 1989, only a couple of weeks before the Maples fled.

Mark and Debbie Baskin believe Yager played a part in diminishing their credibility and helping the Maples flee and stay off the radar for nearly twenty years.  Yager acknowledges speaking to the Maples on several occasions prior to their disappearing and giving them advice on what she would do if Christi and Bobby were her children. She believed the Maples’ allegations, but denies helping them flee and knowing their whereabouts. Yager also says they were never a part of her underground network.

Faye Yager

In 1993, four years after Christi and Bobby were kidnapped, Mark and Debbie Baskin adopted a Vietnamese boy they named Paul.

Michael, Mark, Debbie, And Paul

Mark and Debbie Baskin now live in Georgia. They hope Jenny and Jon Bunting, Christi and Bobby Baskin to them, will change their minds and agree to meet them.

Still Hoping For A Reunion

SOURCES:

• Atlanta Journal
• CBS News
• Murfreesboro Post
• NBC News
• People Magazine
• San Diego Union Tribune
• The Tennessean
• Unsolved Mysteries
• WSAV-TV Channel 3 Savannah, Georgia