Elijah Vue: Missing toddler's grandmom doesn’t know ‘what broke’ in her daughter before she sent son away
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TWO RIVERS, WISCONSIN: The grandmother of 3-year-old Elijah Vue, who disappeared from Two Rivers two months ago, says she has no idea what "broke" inside her daughter to make her send him away to learn "to be a man."
Elijah Vue, 3, disappeared from Two Rivers two months ago, and his grandmother said she had no idea what "broke" inside her daughter to make her send him away to learn "to be a man."
This week, Elijah Vue's grandmother, Jodi Baur talked about her "very sweet" grandson and her daughter Katrina Baur's seeming "cold" reaction to his disappearance.
Jodi Baur recalls time spent with her grandson
While seated on a park bench in Wisconsin Dells, Baur reminisced about her daughter Katrina Baur and her grandson Elijah Vue.
"We'd take him to the beach. He loved going to the beach. He was just a really sweet kid," Baur said. "She always said Vue was her little ray of sunshine," she added, while speaking with WISN.
For Baur, witnessing her daughter become a mother was like a bright light and a contrast to the dark. According to her, Katrina had battled a drug addiction for 20 years.
"Watching your kid fall is the hardest thing in the world. You always want what's best, but you can't get it. It's their life. So that's hard," Baur added.
Addiction, according to Baur, complicated their bond. She claimed that Katrina's life was profoundly impacted by her children's violent and incarcerated father, Jimmy Vue. Baur believed Katrina was receiving assistance.
"Her entire life revolved around those kids. I don't know what broke. I don't know what changed. I wish I could say that she relapsed. I don't even know about that," Baur went on to say.
Katrina Baur was taken into custody and accused of persistent child neglect
No one has seen Vue in over two months. Baur still remembers the day that an Amber alert was issued. Her daughter's response that day was particularly noteworthy.
Baur remarked, "She was calm. She was. I think the investigators had called me that night, said she was cold. Whether she was detached or in denial, I don't know."
According to investigators, Katrina took Vue to Two Rivers to stay with her boyfriend, Jesse Vang, so he could "learn how to be a man." When Vang woke up from his nap on February 20, the boy was gone, he told the police.
"It was the mama bear, the anger, the instinct, the hysteria that was missing that just, it just hit me wrong," Baur stated.
Katrina was taken into custody and accused of persistent child neglect on March 1 and Baur claims that she has not spoken to her since that day.
Katrina Baur was receiving mental health treatment
According to Baur, her daughter's receiving mental health treatment is a prerequisite for finding the answers. "Until we get her in touch with what's real and what's not real, we're not going to know," Baur said.
Vue is still missing, and Katrina and Vang are still in custody. "You find yourself driving alone, you're looking in every ditch, you're looking in every lake, you're looking at every, you know, farm field. And it's just you, just the trauma doesn't stop because there's no closure," Baur said. "Please keep looking for him because somebody is going to find something."
When Vue vanished, Katrina was a resident of Wisconsin Dells and frequently traveled between that area and Two Rivers. According to two Rivers police, Vue is most likely in the Manitowoc County region.
Authorities are offering a $40,000 reward for information that could lead them to Vue.
