The jury trial of a Lakeville mother accused of hiding her two teenage daughters from their father for more than two years begins Monday in Dakota County District Court in Hastings.
Sandra Grazzini-Rucki, now charged with eight felony counts of deprivation of parental rights, was allegedly involved in the April 2013 disappearance of her daughters, Samantha and Gianna Rucki, then 14 and 13. The girls ran away in the midst of a bitter divorce between their parents after their mother accused their father, David Rucki, of being abusive.
Several days after the teens ran away from their Lakeville home, their mother and a friend took the girls to a western Minnesota horse ranch and left them there until they were found by police 2 ½ years later, authorities said.
The trial promises to bring closure to a missing persons case that attracted national attention for years.
According to the charges, Grazzini-Rucki and her friend Dede Evavold drove the girls to a horse ranch near Herman, Minn., run by Doug and Gina Dahlen, who were sympathetic to Grazzini-Rucki's claims that her children were failed by the family court system. Evavold and the Dahlens also face felony charges.
Before they disappeared, the sisters, now 18 and 16, repeatedly accused their father of abuse, but a court-appointed psychologist concluded that Grazzini-Rucki had brainwashed them, and a judge granted full custody to the father.
Days before her trial was set to begin, the county attorney's office filed two additional felony charges of deprivation of parental rights against Grazzini-Rucki. The attorney's office said an amended criminal complaint was filed Tuesday after one of the daughters made a recent statement to Lakeville police.
According to the amended criminal complaint, Samantha Rucki was interviewed by police June 30 and said that her father never abused her and she never saw him abuse any of her siblings.
