This is not just a story about a kidnapping, but is also an expose of how fanatical Christian Nationalism can truly screw up everything it touches. It comes in three Acts. Each takes you down into a new layer to reveal something even weirder and wilder.
No more preamble, let’s just dive right in.
Act 1 – The Kidnapping
Last November 17 deputies in Crawford County, Arkansas responded to a report of a kidnapping. When they arrived they discovered a developmentally delayed 22-year-old woman clutching a teddy-bear in a lot of distress.
She explained that two men who claimed to be associated with Luke Bryan, the singer songwriter, came to her house and said that they would take her to meet Luke. Apparently she had been having on-line conversations with somebody pretending to be him.
‘I thought it was tomorrow you were supposed to be here.’ And they said, ‘Sorry, but Luke sent us today. It’s now or never.’ She gets in the car with them, with her guitar and her teddy bear, and goes with them willingly.”
Instead of meeting with Luke they drove her to a remote location, zip-tied her hands and then tied her to a tree and demanded money. She escaped, but they then re-captured her, tied her back up to the tree and continued to demand money. They …
“threatened to hurt her if she tried to run or yelled.”
Utterly terrified, she pleaded with them to let her go and that she had no money. Somebody raised the alarm …
When Crawford County deputies responded on November 17 to reports of a kidnapping, they claimed they found the developmentally delayed 22-year-old woman tied to a tree in a field, her hands zip-tied together and marks visible on her wrists. She was “in fear for her life” and clutching her teddy bear, according to the affidavits.
This would be a deeply traumatic and utterly terrifying experience for anybody. The 22 year old was developmentally delayed and only had the understanding of an 11 year old. With the mind of a child the terror she felt is truly hard to fully grasp.
This would naturally lead to a lot of questions. For example who were these guys and why would they do that?
To answer that let’s move directly into Act 2 with a reveal.
Act 2 – The Kidnappers are arrested and charged
Tamara Hamby, 59, of Van Buren, was arrested on Dec. 3 for conspiring to kidnap, first-degree false imprisonment, abuse of an endangered or impaired person, third-degree battery and second-degree terroristic threatening.
Who is she and why did she kidnap the girl?
The entire kidnapping had been staged, Tamara Hamby is the girl’s mother.
Aware that her daughter was engaged in on-line conversations with somebody pretending to be Luke, she arranged for the fake kidnapping as an attempt to teach her a lesson.
Five days later on Dec 8 three others were also arrested –
- Shannon Jazmin Yvonne Childers, 27, the girl’s carer who had conspired with the mother to stage the fake kidnapping
- The two guys who did the deed: David Q. Quach, 26, of Fort Smith; Nico L. Austria, 22, also of Fort Smith
Here they all are …
The arrest warrant has details …
The warrant [explains] that Hamby had come up with the idea to have her daughter “kidnapped” as a scare tactic due to her talking to strangers online.
The in-home CNA who was taking care of Hamby’s daughter was allegedly contacted by Hamby about the “kidnapping” plan.
The warrant said the plan was to have someone pretend to be associated with country musician Luke Bryan and communicate with Hamby’s daughter to coordinate a meetup.
The alleged plan was to have the person pick up Hamby’s daughter, take her to a nearby field and demand money before tying her to a tree. Hamby was then supposed to show up and “rescue her.”
Apparently the two guys took a wrong turn and went to the wrong field, so mom never turned up.
As for what the hell they were thinking, Crawford County Chief Deputy Brad Wiley comments on this reveal as follows …
“I don’t understand how you could teach anybody anything through trauma, especially a crime or kidnapping. It doesn’t stand to reason,” Wiley told 40/29 News. “How would she understand? How could she differentiate between reality and a prank?”
Common sense has prevailed, the young woman has been placed in state protective custody.
Being concerned about kids talking to strangers online is wholly appropriate, but there was never any need for something like this. A rather obvious and far more appropriate step would be to cut off her internet access until she promised to behave a lot more responsibly under supervision.
As for staging a fake kidnapping?
Hell no, that’s just messed up.
OK, let’s now go directly into Act 3, a further deeper dive.
Act 3 – Tamara Hamby’s crusade to protect kids
What drives a mother to do something so utterly crazy and reckless, what is going on inside her head?
It turns out that if you dig into her recent activities, you discover that she is a fanatical Christian Nationalist who has been on a self-appointed crusade to protect kids from books that are in any way deemed by her beliefs to be a risk – yes, stories with gay characters, but not just that, it also included anything she personally felt was inappropriate.
Back in 2022 she was a member of the Crawford County Quorum Court, a small body responsible for funding libraries.
OK yes, I better explain. In Arkansas, every county’s legislative authority is called a Quorum Court—this is unique to Arkansas and comes from the state constitution. They basically manage budget.
On behalf of the Quorum Court she wrote a letter to the library board demanding book censorship …
In the above she is complaining that a book in which two men get married was tantamount to child abuse.
I’ve just got to point out the obvious – that’s a deeply immoral stance to take.
Child abuse has a specific meaning: – “harm, exploitation, neglect, or coercion of a child“. A story depicting two adults marrying does none of those things. Expanding the term “child abuse” to include mere exposure to the existence of same-sex relationships is so very deeply flawed for multiple reasons; it undermines child protection efforts, it empties the term of its real meaning, and it also trivializes actual abuse.
Reminder: This is the same woman who later kidnapped and injured her own special needs daughter in order to teach her a lesson – if she would like an example of actual abuse, that that is.
Let’s be even more clear about this. There is no demonstrated harm to children from knowing that same-sex couples exist, but there is demonstrable harm in teaching children that some families are illegitimate or sinful. The only actual harm in play here is coming directly from Tammi Hamby.
It get’s even worse. Not only did she embark upon a deeply immoral anti-gay crusade, but she went a lot further with her crazy demands to the library …
FFS.
Side note: The “her” in the above was the library director.
The librarians wanted to keep their jobs and they wanted to also keep the funding, so a compromise was cooked up – put books deemed “of concern” into a separate section. However, even that is illegal, and also included …(via paragraph 20 at link)
a book on world religions; a book about people with disabilities; and a book that normalizes blended families, i.e., families in which both parents are divorced and have children from prior relationships
This was all just nuts.
The Library board felt rather strongly about this lunacy being imposed by this deluded fanatic, so many of them quit in protest.
Guess who then gets appointed to the library board?
Yep, you nailed it, Tamara did and ended us as Chairwoman of the library system.
Most local residents there are not this crazy and so various lawsuits kicked into play forcing the library to put the books back on the shelves and do away with their separate section. That entire drama cost a lot of money, so the question goes to the chair of the library system to decide who pays. Inevitably Tamara, who is now chair, decrees that the utter chaos and all the associated legal costs that she personally caused should be paid for by the library system.
Updates
On Nov 24, Tamara quit her position on the library board. That came as a bit of a surprise. She explained within her letter of resignation that she was moving away.
When the news of her arrest broke on Dec 3, all became clear what the phrase “moving away” referred to. If convicted, the she will indeed be “moving away” for 10 to 30 years.
One commentator sums it all up rather well like this …
The Hambys waged war on librarians for shelving books about LGBTQ families, calling it “child abuse,” even as they orchestrated a literal kidnapping of their own daughter. They demanded censorship in the name of protecting minors, then organized the physical restraining of someone under their own care. There’s Christian hypocrisy, and then there’s whatever the hell the Hambys have been doing. The gap between their morality and their actions is practically the Grand Canyon.
And yes, once again not drag queens.
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