Aussie Woman in Child Abduction Case Marries Victim - Updated

(Adelaide, Australia) After Tamara Broome returned to Adelaide, her 17-year-old victim, Jonathan Martini, simply waited for his birthday.

Jonathan's parents admitted their anguish after discovering their son missing on the morning he turned 18.

They said he left to get McDonald's and never returned.

"I don't understand what I did wrong to him," Wanda Martini said.

"I thought I was giving him the love that a mother should give to a son, but maybe it was the wrong kind of love."

Mr Martini said he and his wife sat their son down three weeks before his birthday and offered to help him get to Australia, but he refused.

"We anticipated it," Mr Martini said. "We told him that we would help him any way we could, we would help him get his plane ticket and his passport. But he kept saying he hadn't heard from her."

Their anticipation is understandable since the boy tried to run away before and had to be stopped at the airport. Meanwhile, Broome was prohibited from having any contact with Jonathan until he turned 18. However, she did tell the media that she would marry him when he arrived in Australia.

In June 2008, Jonathan Martini arrived in Adelaide. In July, Tamara Broome and Jonathan Martini were married. Reportedly, the couple now leads a quiet life together.

Regarding Wanda Martini's lament that she did something wrong as a mother to Jonathan, maybe she was simply too wonderful. Her son married a woman who is arguably old enough to be his mother, a mother-figure so to speak. Perhaps Wanda Martini was such a wonderful mother that Jonathan fell in love with the mother persona and decided to marry an older motherly-type woman.


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Aussie Woman Pleas Out in Child Abduction Case
[Previous 8/7/07 post bumped]
(Greenville, North Carolina) A 31-year-old Australian woman, Tamara Broome, was arrested on June 25 for allegedly traveling from Australia to North Carolina to abduct a 17-year-old boy she met on the Internet while playing World of Warcraft. Broome was charged with abduction of a child and held on $2.4 million bail.

The case has now been resolved.

Broome was released from jail July 25th after agreeing to a plea deal on a charge associated with an Internet relationship with the boy that grew out of an online game of World of Warcraft. She spent 29 days in custody.

Broome pleaded guilty in Pitt County District Court to contributing to the delinquency of a minor. If Broome obeys the conditions of her release, her record will be cleared.

Broome has returned to her hometown of Adelaide, Australia.