Woman given probation for custody violation

The Daily Inter Lake

A Kalispell woman convicted of fleeing with her two young children across the country in violation of a court-imposed parenting arrangement has been sentenced to five years probation.

During a hearing Thursday in Flathead County District Court, Valerie Lea Dunkle, 46, was ordered to serve a five-year suspended sentence to the Montana Department of Corrections.

She also was ordered to pay more than $4,400 in restitution, continue paying for the children's counseling, and not have contact with them unless approved by the court.

Dunkle pleaded guilty in June to felony parenting interference. In exchange, a second charge of parenting interference was dropped.

The children, at the time of their return a 12-year-old girl and a 5-year-old boy, were reunited with their father, according to investigators.

Dunkle was arrested in late August after the Kalispell Police Department received a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that she and the two children were staying at a domestic violence shelter in New Mexico.

Kalispell detectives contacted the Valencia County, N.M., sheriff's office and relayed the information, which led to Dunkle's arrest on two warrants for custodial interference.

The children had been missing since March 2007, when their mother allegedly disappeared with them to avoid an arbitration hearing.

Before being spotted in New Mexico, the children were last seen with Dunkle, who sometimes went by the alias Valerie Revander, in Harrison, Ark. Arkansas police last year had a lead on her vehicle, but she fled before police could verify it was her.