(Memphis) Christy and Brent Perkins recently celebrate their wedding anniversary.
“Brent and I were married 11 years ago today it’s been awesome,” Christy Perkins said.
“It’s been much more than I anticipated. It’s been great,” Brent Perkins said.
The Perkins also talk about the present, the future and what they went through in their past.
“The attempt to locate where the boys(Christy’s sons) were was beyond anybody’s ability to really understand what was involved with that,” Brent Perkins said.
12 years ago, Christy’s former husband, Craig Walker of Germantown, kidnapped their two sons, Landon and Logan, and took them to Brazil in a bitter custody dispute.
“Our family was coming to an end and I guess Craig decided this was the only way to handle the situation, in his mind,” Christy Perkins said.
Christy went on an international hunt to bring her sons home.
“I was pretty determined to find Landon and Logan when they were missing,” Christy Perkins said.
After a year and a half of searching, an acquaintance of Walker’s tipped off police to his whereabouts. Walker was arrested and the boys were returned to their mother in an emotional reunion at Miami International Airport in 2001.
“There’s no mother who’s ever going to give up looking for their children. You do whatever it takes, no matter how long it takes to bring them home,” Christy Walker said.
At that time, Brent Perkins was a technical director at WREG-TV.
“Here we(WREG) are doing the live shots from the airport and this incredible coverage and I thought she’s(Christy) really something. She’s an incredible human being and the boys getting off the plane with their FBI hats on and everything.”
Years later, life has changed for both Logan and Landon.
“They’ve moved on pretty well. They really don’t talk about it,” Christy Perkins said.
“I think that I have moved on. It’s the past, I wonder about it sometimes, but I think I know what it is,” Logan Walker said.
Logan is now 15. He’s into things such as school, scouting and music and performing with the Germantown Youth Symphony Orchestra.
“Life is going well. I do much of the time, play violin, and guitar” Logan Walker said.
His big brother, Landon, is 21, recently married and in the U.S. Navy.
“I’m so proud of him. Here you have a kid(Landon) who had every reason in the world to say the world is against me and he went through basic training and aced it,” Brent Perkins said.
Logan and Landon are also part of a blended family, which includes their stepfather’s four children.
“When we’ve had the opportunity to get six all together, it’s really, really wonderful,” Brent Perkins said.
As for Christy, she’s on a personal mission helping other parents whose kids were illegally taken and working with the Commission on Missing and Exploited Children(COMEC).
“If there’s anyway we can help bring children home, back to their parents and help recover these kids,” Christy Perkins said.
In the case of Christy and Brent Perkins, seeing other children returned back home is always a ‘picture perfect’ ending for a family once torn apart, but woven back together through one mother’s determination.
“All of these things have made almost a Norman Rockwell(artist) sort of picture and it’s been pretty cool,” Brent Perkins said.
Regarding Craig Walker, he was found dead in his Memphis home in 2010. Walker was never charged with kidnapping because of an international treaty with Brazil.