WXOW News 19 La Crosse, WI – News, Weather and Sports |Victim's mother arrives in Madison hoping for reunion

MADISON (WKOW) - "This is the last picture I have of [child's name] and I together," said Heidi Pease.

Heidi Pease has been living on memories for the last six years of a daughter she gave up in hopes that her child could have a better life.

"Diddle Diddle was her nickname," she said.  "I thought I was doing the right thing. I was not capable of taking care of my child." 

She has now found out that her daughter may have been living locked in basement for years tortured and starved by her father, Chad Chritton, and his wife Melinda Drabek.

"I know I made my mistakes and I screwed up," Pease said.  "All I want is my daughter back.

Pease drove across the country with proof she never stopped trying to keep in contact with her child. She showed detectives  the letters she wrote, the hundreds of pictures she kept and the teddy bear and cross she gave to her daughter so that she would never forget.

"I always believed that if she had these she would always remember," Pease said.

Pease says her daughter didn't get to keep those things while in the custody of Chritton and Drabek, and her daughter never got the letters, or the phone calls.  But today, she hopes her child knows that she is loved.

"I know that whatever happens, that she is safe and she is taken care of and that she is getting the help that she needs," said Pease.

The mother tells us the detective said there is a good chance that the State will give someone in her family custody of her daughter.  Whether it's her or the child's aunt or someone else, it's too early to say. But Friday, the Department of Human Services told us that is it "seeing what is legally appropriate given the situation".

Pease terminated her parental rights in 2006 because she was married to a sex offender, but she says that she's not with that man anymore. In fact, she says he passed away.  She believes she is now in a home where she could care for her child.