For the press

For immediate release · Bonita Springs, Florida · November 7, 2026

A Florida mother holds the only valid custody order in two states. A Redwood Valley family has kept her two-year-old for three months anyway — and every office asked to act has declined.

Carli Heller, representing herself, has sued Vincent Michael Hyler and his parents, Judith and Michael Hyler of Redwood Valley, California, in two civil actions in Mendocino County Superior Court, and has filed sworn criminal referrals with the California Attorney General, the Mendocino County Probation Department, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the U.S. Department of Justice. The question she is putting to all of them is the same one: “Just because there’s no federal enforcement mechanism and he’s still there doesn’t mean that he’s supposed to be.”

What the court record shows

• The only custody order made after notice and a hearing is the Findings and Order After Hearing filed February 11, 2026 in Mendocino Superior Court No. 25FL01030: sole physical custody of J.J., now two, to his mother, with permission to live in Florida. It has never been vacated or modified by any order made on notice and hearing. It was registered in the Circuit Court for Lee County, Florida on September 22, 2026; the statutory window to contest the registration closed October 16 with no contest.
• The paper the child was taken under had an expiration date printed on it. The August 12, 2026 temporary order, obtained without notice to the mother (“NOTICE NOT GIVEN,” per the court’s own register), states on its face that it expires “on the date and time of the hearing in (1) [September 2, 2026, 9:30 AM], unless extended by court order.” The clerk’s minutes of September 2 record no extension. On August 19, Lee County deputies removed the child from his mother’s home on a Florida warrant whose every page still carries the footer “Proposed Emergency Ex Parte Order and Child-Pickup Warrant,” executed at an address the same court had sealed on the mother’s own domestic-violence petition.
• The child was in California before any order allowed it. Vincent Hyler’s own exhibit places the child at a Ukiah clinic at 1:00 p.m. on August 26, 2026. The Florida order “authorizing” travel to California was signed at 1:11 p.m. on August 27 — the next day.
• The gun. A March 2025 restraining order listed Vincent Hyler’s firearms as a “shot gun and other guns at mother’s house.” His April 15, 2025 surrender receipt lists two rifles and no shotgun, and answers “No,” under penalty of perjury, to owning any other firearm. In August 2026 he swore he had surrendered “the firearm referenced in the 2025 directive” — in the application used to take the child — and attached the receipt that contradicts him. He is on probation in Mendocino County. The shotgun has never been accounted for.
• The extension that came later. On October 15, 2026, on no motion and without a hearing, over the mother’s filed objection, the court signed an order declaring that the August 12 orders had been extended on September 15 and “have remained in full force and effect without interruption.” The day before, opposing counsel’s own sworn declaration placed the only ruling on October 6 and her brief stated that a court “may not create a different judicial decision retroactively.”
• Every office asked to act has declined, in writing, with a date: the Lee County Sheriff’s Office (September 11 — declined to enter the child as missing), the Florida State Attorney (September 15 — prosecutes only cases “brought to us by our local police agencies”), the Mendocino District Attorney (September 8 — the investigator contacted the other side’s lawyer before acting), the Mendocino Sheriff (September 28 — declined a welfare check), the California Court of Appeal, First District (November 2 — one line), and the Florida Sixth District Court of Appeal (November 6). No independent person has laid eyes on the child and reported to his mother since August 19.

What is on file now

• Heller v. Hyler, Mendocino Superior Court No. 26CV04599 (filed October 15, 2026; served October 26 on Vincent and Judith Hyler at Stan’s Maple Cafe, Ukiah; Michael Hyler added October 27): damages for the taking and keeping of the child; sworn answers due November 25.
• Heller v. Hyler, the second complaint, submitted to the Mendocino County Superior Court clerk November 8, 2026 (case number posted when the clerk issues it): a nineteen-page verified complaint, eighty-nine paragraphs, for domestic violence against Vincent Michael Hyler and for aiding and abetting it against Judith and Michael Hyler — including, by paragraph, what the complaint alleges each of them knew and did before the child was taken.
• Motions for sanctions against opposing counsel in California (filed November 6, eFileCA No. 25820255) and Florida (filed November 6, Lee County Portal No. 260916725); a statement of disqualification served November 3 on the Mendocino judge, who has since made no substantive ruling and vacated every date in the case; a petition for review due in the Supreme Court of California November 12; sworn criminal referrals to the Attorney General of California, the Governor of Florida, FDLE, the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division (No. 852678-SDR), the FBI, the ATF, Mendocino County Probation, the California Commission on Judicial Performance, the Florida Judicial Qualifications Commission, the State Bar of California and The Florida Bar.

In her words

“It’s not my fault that no one will do it. It’s expired. Just because there’s no federal enforcement mechanism and he’s still there doesn’t mean that he’s supposed to be — or ever was supposed to be in the first place.”

“Just because someone takes something through a legal pathway, but does it completely illegally top to bottom, does not make it legal. It’s like Enron saying they were doing accounting properly because they had accountants.”

“It’s like saying it’s legal to abduct a child as long as you do it with a lawyer.”

Why this is a story beyond one family

A custody order has no police behind it. The uniform act every state adopted to enforce custody orders across state lines gives a parent a list of things to ask for — registration, a hearing the next judicial day, a warrant, a prosecutor’s help in locating the child — and every one of them runs through an official who may say no. There is no federal agency that returns a child taken across state lines in a domestic case; the FBI acts only after a county prosecutor charges a felony and asks. This mother asked every office in two states, in writing, with dates, and built the record of their answers. The record — court filings, recordings, and the letters of refusal — is published in full at jjsmom.com, with every document downloadable.

Contact: Carli Heller · cjj.heller@gmail.com · (239) 382-0668. She will speak on the record. No photographs of the child will be provided.

All statements about court proceedings are drawn from filed court records, cited by case number; where a court record is quoted, the quotation is verbatim.