Little girl lost and found

FAMILY

Hilary Foretich turns up in New Zealand and the tug of war for her custody begins all over again

In a country far away, a little girl, prim and proper in her crisp private-school uniform, tries desperately to hide from the phalanx of reporters and photographers who have suddenly invaded her neighborhood. Her public face is stoic; only her eyes convey the terror she must feel. Last week in Christchurch. New Zealand, this was the troubled world of Hilary Foretich, the 7-year-old at the center of a fierce and highly publicized custody dispute between her divorced parents. Elizabeth Morgan and Eric Foretich.

The abrupt intrusion put an end to one of the few calm periods in Hilary's short life. In 1987, Elizabeth Morgan, a plastic surgeon, placed her daughter in the care of her maternal grandparents. She sent the trio into hiding to avoid a court order that would permit unsupervised visits with her father. After a worldwide search, a private investigator hired by Foretich, a dental surgeon, finally found Hilary on Feb. 23. Morgan claims Foretich sexually abused Hilary for years. Foretich vehemently denies the charge and says his ex-wife is crazy and is destroying his daughter's emotional health. One parent is a liar and maybe worse; the other could be Hilary's protector. But which is which?

A New Zealand judge will rule on the case sometime in the next few months. Unlike the years of rancorous court proceedings in Washington, D.C., where Hilary's parents live, the actions of family courts in New Zealand are confidential. Under local law, it is a criminal offense to print information about family-court proceedings. Suddenly, Hilary's publicity-shrewd parents were playing by a whole new set of rules. Last week, almost immediately after the private investigator's discovery, Foretich flew 9,000 miles to New Zealand. At first he was highly visible, telling reporters at the airport, "I intend to see my daughter." But when his local lawyers explained how things are done in New Zealand, he disappeared from sight and did not attempt to visit Hilary. Elizabeth Morgan was equally prudent at home in Washington, keeping her usually blunt public comments to a minimum.

Silence from the warring parents will be a dramatic change. The press has covered the squabble with great zeal, and Morgan and Foretich have at times seemed to welcome the attention. Both parents have been interviewed over and over about the most intimate details of Hilary's medical and personal history. They have set up separate 800 numbers manned by supporters to provide updates. The case, which began in 1983 when Hilary was less than a year old, is the most exhaustive custody battle in Washington court history. The testimony from dozens of expert witnesses for both sides takes up more than 4,000 pages of transcripts and has cost Hilary's parents more than 84 million in legal fees. Foretich has been fighting on another front as well. His 9-year-old daughter, Heather, by a previous marriage, also claims he sexually abused her. Although Foretich denies the charges, a 1986 court ruling virtually barred him from seeing her, and she is suing him for $4 million in damages.

So far, the New Zealand courts have taken only preliminary action in Hilary's case, granting temporary custody of the child to Morgan's parents, William, 79, and Antonia, 75, who have cared for the child during her exile. Their odyssey took them from Washington to the Bahamas, Canada, England and finally to Christchurch in July 1988. They enrolled Hilary in Selwyn House School and moved into a modest nearby residential motel. While her daughter and parents sought refuge, Elizabeth Morgan--who kept in contact with her family through intermediaries--was confined to jail for more than two years. A Washington judge sentenced her to contempt when she refused to reveal Hilary's whereabouts. Morgan w,as released in September after Congress passed a bill designed especially for her that limited jail time in Washington contempt cases to one year. Last week she returned to court, where a judge returned the passport she was forced to surrender more than three years ago. She was expected to leave for New Zealand in a matter of days.

Fresh shot: Hilary's grandparents tried to maintain some sense of normalcy in the child's life last week, despite the intense scrutiny by reporters who flew in from around the globe. At 8:15 every morning, they emerged from the motel and hustled Hilary into their car, which was surrounded by cameramen eager for a fresh shot of the little girl. By most accounts, Hilary's time in Christchurch has been peaceful. School officials say the Morgans told them that the pupil enrolled as Ellen Morgan was actually Hilary Foretich. "It was their business," headmistress Christine Davidson told a reporter. "She came here and has been treated like any other pupil." To protect Hilary's privacy, Davidson had stopped talking by midweek; the school issued a statement saying that "Hilary is a good pupil and we enjoy having her with us."

Similar reports came from Plymouth, England, one of the stops the Morgans made in their journey. Hilary and her grandparents lived there in a two-bedroom apartment on a quiet street from November 1987 to July 1988. Neighbors interviewed said they had no idea that the family was on the run. Hilary attended kindergarten at Beechfield College, a nearby private school, again under the name Ellen Morgan. The Morgans claimed they were "bringing Ellen on a holiday from America," said Beechfield's deputy headmistress, Pat Holness, "They said they were taking her around England to show her the sights and warned that they might move on at any time." Hilary told her classmates that her mother had been killed in a car accident and, not wanting to upset the grandparents, no one at the school asked for details. "Her grandparents said to me when they came that they weren't too worried about what she learned as long as she was happy," Holness recalled. "They wanted her to be happy most of all."

But others last week had serious doubts about William Morgan's fitness to care for the child--although family members defended him. The Washington times reprised 1987 testimony by Dr. Elissa Benedek, a forensic psychiatrist hired by Foretich to examine Hilary. Benedek claimed that Antonia Morgan had told her that William Morgan had physically abused her throughout their marriage. Antonia Morgan separated from her husband in 1980. The couple, divorced in 1986, were remarried in 1989 in New Zealand.

William Morgan also drew fire for racially charged statements he made last week about the Washington courts. "The D.C. Court of appeals," he told the press, "is a lazy, incompetent body, concerned and interested in protecting this judge," referring to Judge Herbert Dixon Jr., who presided over the custody case. "He's a black and six of the nine [judges] on the D.C. Court of Appeals are black.' In fact, there are eight judges or the court and only two are black.

Those comments and the newspaper stories prompted Hilary's court guardian in Washington, Lynda Holman, to question William Morgan's mental stability at a hearing on whether to return Elizabeth Morgan's passport. Stephen Sachs, her lawyer, called Holman's statement a "gratuitous slur." Later, he said that the animosity between Holman and William Morgan stemmed from a dispute the two had over the issue of Hilary's unsupervised visits with her father. The Morgan family strenuously denied allegations that William Morgan is violent and abusive. In a 1987 violation-of-ethics complaint filed by Antonia Morgan against Benedek with the American Psychiatric Association, Antonia Morgan said the psychiatrist, who never interviewed William, "suppressed, distorted and misrepresented evidence which did not fit in with her own conclusions." No action was ever taken on the complaint. Elizabeth Morgan says her father is a "generous, hardworking, wonderful man who is also very moody ... The only time he ever struck me was when he spanked me once when I was 3." Elizabeth Morgan's brother Robert said his parents argued, but he never saw his father strike his mother.

The New Zealand court may unravel the tangled charges and countercharges in the case. But no matter what its decision, child-development experts say it is unlikely that Hilary will ever recover fully from the extraordinary events of her childhood. The Morgan-Foretich case, in fact, represents everything mean and messy that can happen in a custody tug of war. "It's a caricature of what we see," said Marla B. Isaacs, a Philadelphia clinical psychologist and author of "The Difficult Divorce." "It's not off the scale in quality, but in quantity. I have seen people do incredible damage by keeping up the fight." For Hilary's parents, Isaacs says, "The only thing that can really make a difference is if they lay down their swords. If this fight continues, she's a goner."

Feeling abandoned: All custody cases, especially those involving charges of abuse, are emotionally wrenching for everyone. Betty Manley, an Atlanta therapist who has worked on dozens of custody disputes, says that when she starts meeting with parents, "I always tell them that fighting over custody is a form of child abuse. Unfortunately, by that point, usually neither of them hear me. Both of them genuinely believe that what they are doing is in the best interest of the child." Hilary's situation is worse than the usual because she has not seen either of her parents for so long. She may well feel abandoned, even if her grandparents have taken good care of her. In order to overcome the effects of her experiences, Manley says, Hilary will need intensive therapy and careful supervision.

The cloak of silence that has now descended around the New Zealand courts may be just the right step in any eventual healing process for Hilary. In this low-key, still very properly English nation, her parents have to convince a judge only of their fitness. Most New Zealanders believe that the affair is none of their business, even if the media don't think so.

Hilary's parents also start with a clean legal slate. New Zealand does not recognize custody orders from any country except Australia, although the court may look to the previous proceeding for guidance. There is only one standard that matters in New Zealand family court: the best interests of the child. After so many years of pain, Hilary deserves nothing less.

PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): A sanctuary invaded: Hilary's grandparents try to shield her from reporters

PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): Bitter triangle: Foretich (left) arriving in New Zealand last week, Morgan with Hilary (right), before she spent two years in jail for refusing to reveal her daughter's whereabouts

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By BARBARA KANTROWITZ with ANDREW MURR in Christchurch, CLARA BINGHAM in Washington and ELIZABETH JONES in London