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Rucki Sisters: Missing Minnesota Sisters Found Alive On Horse Farm After Going Missing Two Years Ago

By Tara Dodrill
Published on: 01:15 PST, Nov 20, 2015

The missing Rucki sisters were found alive on a Minnesota horse farm two years after their Lakeville disappearance. Gianni Rucki and Samantha Rucki had not been seen in public since running away after a Minneapolis-area judge ordered them to live with their father during a custody battle.

The missing Rucki girls, now 16 and 17-years-old respectively, went missing from Lakeville in April, 2013. Their mother, Sandra Grazzini-Rucki, has been arrested for failing to provide information about the girls whereabouts to the police and for depriving her ex-husband, David Rucki, of his parental rights, MSN reports. The mother is now in a Dakota County, Minnesota jail awaiting trial.

Lakeville Police Lt. Jason Polinski said that when the Rucki sisters went missing, he assumed their mother would be eager to help assist with the investigation to locate them but he was wrong, the Star Tribune reported. Sandra Grazzini-Rucki consistently denied having anything to do with the disappearance of her daughters.

“Both Samantha and Gianna were found safe and in seemingly good health at the residence where the Search Warrant was executed,” a statement by the Lakeville police read. “The sisters will return to Dakota County where the unification process can begin.”

In November of 2013, David Rucki was given full custody of the Rucki sisters by a Dakota County judge. Before disappearing, the Rucki girls said they were being abused by their father. While on the run, Rucki sisters appeared on a local news station, repeated the abuse claims, and begged to live with their mother.

A psychologist involved in the custody case told the judge that the Minnesota sisters needed to be “deprogrammed,” because they had been brainwashed by their mother to hate their father. David Rucki denied ever abusing his daughters, and the court could not find “credible evidence” that any abuse had taken place.

Minnesota police believe an “underground network of family court critics,” known as the Protective Parent Movement, was hiding the Rucki sisters on the White Horse Ranch for two years. Evidence found at a St. Cloud home reportedly led to a search warrant being obtained to search the horse farm. Property owner Gina Dahlen is allegedly a supporter of Protective Parent. Police say Dahlen has worked as an activist to increase awareness about what she feels is a broken family court system that grants custody to abusive parents.

The White Horse Ranch describes itself as a non-profit organization where abused children and horses come together. “Broken children and hurting horses are able to bring each other to a place of healing through God’s unconditional love,” the ranch website states.

Michelle MacDonald, an attorney for the Sandra Grazzini-Rucki, said the missing Rucki girls would be forced to undergo unwanted therapy and to live in their father’s home. Her client did not want them found.

“What are they coming back to? What protection will they have?” Michelle MacDonald said. “They’re free right now.”

David Rucki has not yet spoken to the media or issued a statement about his daughters, Gianna Rucki and Samantha Rucki, being found on the Minnesota horse farm or the arrest of his ex-wife.

What do you think about the case of the missing Rucki sisters? Did the mother use an underground network to hide the girls from their father?

[Image via Lakeville Police Department and National Center for Missing and Exploited Children]

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