A long-running legal saga pitting two former lesbian partners in a child custody fight returns to Vermont this week, with the state’s highest court set to hear an appeal.
Lawyers for Lisa Miller, who has disappeared with 8-year-old Isabella Miller-Jenkins, are challenging a Family Court judge’s decision to award custody to former partner Janet Jenkins, of Fair Haven.
The girl and her birth mother failed to appear for a court-ordered Jan. 1 custody swap in which Jenkins was to get the girl. Since then, Jenkins’ attorney has said the two are believed to have moved to El Salvador.
On Wednesday, the Vermont Supreme Court will hear arguments from Miller’s attorneys, who say Judge William Cohen erred last November in awarding custody to Jenkins, who is not the biological mother.
