A mum has told how she was duped into inviting two suspects in a US child kidnap and murder plot to stay at her home with her kids.
Miriam Berlow-Jackson was left traumatised after discovering that a woman who had lived with her family near Glasgow for almost four months was wanted in the States for a “horror movie script” scheme to snatch five children and kill their parents.
The mum-of-three - who believed she was providing refuge for vulnerable women - said photos of alleged plot ringleader Valerie Hayes, 42, cradling her children sent “shivers down her spine”.
And she told how she and her husband unwittingly “harboured a fugitive” when co-accused Jennifer Amnott, 37, turned up at her door days after fleeing the US following the botched plot. Miriam, 49, said: “I think we’ve had a lucky escape. Valerie was a master manipulator and I was too trusting."
Hayes, Amnott and a third suspect, Gary Reburn, 59, are wanted in the States for their alleged parts in an attempt to steal the children from a religious community in Virginia in 2018. The trio are awaiting extradition to the US in Scottish jails after the latest of their appeals to remain failed.
Florida man Frank Jesse Amnott, Jennifer’s husband, is already facing a life sentence in the States after pleading guilty to his involvement. Legal papers claim Hayes duped the Amnotts, who could not have children, into believing she was a government agent. She then convinced them to help her carry out an abduction in return for a child of their own.
The US authorities claim Hayes, who was living with boyfriend Reburn in Maryland, claimed that three of her own children had been kidnapped and were in the custody of two separate Mennonite farming families in Dayton. Court documents say Frank Amnott, Jennifer Amnott, Hayes, and Reburn devised a plan to take the children - who were, in fact, unrelated to Hayes - and kidnap two others, all under the age of eight.
The US Attorney’s Office said the murderous plan “sought to eliminate witnesses to the abductions” by executing both sets of parents but was foiled when one of the parents escaped. Police caught Frank Amnott as the other suspects fled and US prosecutors later described the alleged plot as “like a script from a bad horror movie”.
Miriam told how Hayes came to live with her, her lawyer husband and three children, then aged between two and eight, in Deaconsbank, near Newton Mearns, prior to the alleged offence.
Miriam said: “I was part of a women’s support network where we help people in need all over the world. We became aware of a woman who was fleeing severe domestic abuse and needed a place. We discussed it as a group and decided Scotland was a very good place for her to come because of its asylum laws.”
She said Hayes first arrived at her door in 2014 and quickly became part of the family. The mum said: “She was in my house the entire time. If I needed to go out she would babysit and she would take the kids out for walks. It was like she was part of the family.
“She was lovely with the kids and just seemed like a really nice, vulnerable girl who had got into a dodgy situation. There were no red flags. She was literally the perfect house guest. But the whole time she was catfishing me and making me think she was this person she wasn’t.”
Hayes’ stories became more elaborate and she would tell Miriam how she was working undercover for intelligence services. Miriam said: “She would tell everybody she was working in human trafficking and go on missions to rescue people. She would go out every day into town. I would ask her questions about her day.”
Hayes only left when the family moved to a new area and remained in contact. But soon after, Miriam was distraught to receive news through her online network that Hayes had died, with claims she had been shot and killed on a work “mission”.
But then she turned up online again. Miriam said: “Everyone was grieving but then a new story surfaced that she was alive. She had been shot and captured and was recovering. Then she was suddenly back on Facebook.
“I kept chatting a little but I just couldn’t handle the nonsense anymore. I wanted to distance myself from the drama.”
In 2018, Miriam was approached through the network with a request for Hayes' friend Jennifer Amnott to stay with her. Just days after the alleged plot to snatch the children in the US had failed, she was at Miriam’s door.
Miriam said: “She sat here and told me this whole story about how Valerie and her husband Frank were so close and had gone off on a mission. She had complete faith and trust in Valerie. Luckily we were going away so she could only stay for one night.
"Soon after I saw an article from the US about Frank being arrested on these allegations and couldn’t believe it. I had been harbouring a fugitive and didn’t know. The next thing we knew they had been detained.”
In a letter sent from HMP Edinburgh, Hayes told Miriam she would prove her story. It said: "I hope and pray for a quiet, peaceful life where I am never shot at again, never have to use the word ‘classified’ again, and most importantly a simple ‘boring’ life with my children in Glasgow.”
Miriam said she “obsessively” researched the US case during lockdown. She said: “I was beside myself with the thought that she might have been planning to take my kids. It completely freaked me out.
“I worried there was someone above her who was going to come and shut me up. I called the States and ended up getting an interview with the FBI. I told them everything I knew. I realise now that Valerie Hayes is a psychopathic narcissist of the highest order. She is dangerous."
The Supreme Court refused to hear the trio’s appeal against extradition last month, with judges at the UK’s highest court ruling they had not raised an arguable point of law.
Miriam’s husband, who does not wish to be named, said: “For me it’s a huge relief that she’ll not be in this country much longer. You can’t escape the thought that we were being groomed or set up in some way. It’s certainly made us less trusting and it’s sad that our faith in other people has definitely been damaged.”
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