Karen Hunter was pregnant and had been married to Dan Kestel for only two months when he became enraged while setting up the baby’s room and threw a hammer at her 7-year-old son.

Despite a quick apology and an excuse from Kestel that he was off his anger medication, Hunter wasted no time packing up and leaving.

Her decision was solidified when Kestel punched the wall behind her inches from her head as she and Kestel’s stepson left.

There would be no reconciliation, and the resulting divorce and fights about their new son, Justin, only intensified the bitterness.

Karen Hunter holds a photo of her holding her son, Justin, taken before he was abducted as a 1-year-old.
Duane A. Laverty / Waco Tribune-Herald

Kestel, who moved to the Dallas area and worked in hotel maintenance, was granted supervised visits with his son twice a month.

That apparently wasn’t good enough for him, so 20 years ago last week, authorities say he picked up his 13-month-old son from Hunter’s home in Lorena and the pair disappeared.

June 21, 1992, was the last day Hunter saw her son.

The next month, FBI agents got a warrant charging Kestel with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution on interference with child custody charges.

Leads generated by police agencies and private investigators have been scarce, leaving Hunter to wonder what became of her now-21-year-old son, what he was told about her and what he looks like now.

Justin’s disappearance is featured on the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children website.

The agency has generated an age-progression drawing of what its artists/scientists think Justin might look like now.

But it’s only an educated guess made more difficult because they only had a photograph of Justin at age 1 to work with.

“I get most upset every year around his birthday, May 5, and in June on the date he was abducted,” said Hunter, who now lives in Hewitt and has a 16-year-old daughter.

“I think about him all the time and wonder if he is going to college or what he is going to be. I worry that his father told him that I am dead or that I don’t care about him. But I will never give up hope that I will find him someday.”

Hunter, 52, said she warned the judge in Dallas that Kestel was going to abduct their son.

She became suspicious when he showed up in Lorena for his last few visits driving rental cars.

On the day the pair vanished, authorities tracked the rental car to McGregor, where it was abandoned near the Amtrak train depot.

Authorities later discovered that Kestel’s mother paid for two train tickets to Florida and Kestel checked into a hotel outside Sarasota managed at the time by his ex-wife, Hunter said.

Authorities also know Kestel has family in Ohio.

Lorena Police Chief Tom Dickson said the last lead listed in his file on the case came in June 2011 from a father and son who thought they spotted Kestel and Justin at the Skyline restaurant in Huber Heights, Ohio.

“They had all the information you could want — where they saw them, what time of day, a license plate number — but it turned out not to be the big break we were looking for,” Dickson said.

A few months ago, Central Texas private investigators Shannon Gamble and Gina Frenzel heard about Justin’s case and have been volunteering their time to try to track him down.

“I came across this 20-year-old cold case and it just really spoke to my heart,” Gamble said. “Our single goal is to reunite mother and son. Every mother has a right to know her child, and every child has a right to know their mother.”

Hunter said Kestel stopped using his Social Security number shortly after he disappeared with Justin, and authorities assume he has adopted a new identity.

Hunter said while her desire to see her son has not diminished, the years have eased her initial pain somewhat.

“That first year, I went into a major depression,” she said. “I was a basket case. I couldn’t quit crying for days on end. I was just unable to perform, and it ruined my life and my older son’s life, too.”

Bob Lowery, executive director of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, said that while 20 years is a long time for a child to remain missing, it is not unprecedented. He said the center recently was involved in locating a person missing 42 years and another missing 34 years.

“Twenty years is a long time,” he said. “But we stay involved with these cases until these children are found.”

Abducted children often are isolated and, in many cases, go without formal education, Lowery said.

“Unfortunately, we see a lot of cases of neglect and violence against these kids because it really isn’t about the welfare of the child. It is more about the relationship between the mother and the father,” he said.

Lowery urges those with information about Justin or any missing child to call the center at 800-843-5678.

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