Stella L. Carman Kennedy v. Leonard E‪.‬

Plaintiff and defendant are, respectively, the mother and father of Joseph Lee Carman, a male child born to them in wedlock
on February 22, 1962. After a prolonged separation their marriage was dissolved on September 10, 1968, by a decree of divorce
entered in the Superior Court of Creek County, Oklahoma. That judgment awarded the boy's custody to defendant, his father,
and gave plaintiff, (his mother), certain visitation privileges. Thereafter plaintiff took the child to Missouri for visitation,
refused to return him to his father in Oklahoma, and filed this suit as a proceeding in equity, seeking a Missouri court's
award of the child's custody to herself instead of to his father. In her petition she claims entitlement to that relief on
allegations that there were changed conditions since the original decree such that it would be for the best interest and welfare
of the child that his custody be awarded to her, the mother. She further charges that defendant is not a fit person to have
the child's full time custody. At the time plaintiff filed this action, she was domiciled in Missouri. Defendant, still domiciled in Oklahoma, was notified
of the suit by "Summons Upon Service by Mail". However, he entered personal appearance and filed answer generally traversing
plaintiff's petition. Additionally he filed a cross-petition (characterized by plaintiff in her brief as a "cross-petition
in ") seeking restoration of the boy's custody to himself. In that pleading he alleged that plaintiff was unlawfully restraining
and withholding the boy from him in violation of the terms of the Oklahoma decree, which had finally determined the custody
question in his favor, and prayed that the court forthwith restore to him the child's "physical custody, control and care".