About 2 months after ‘A’ left Australia, Avigail called Jeff and asked if he wanted to talk to ‘A’, and over the next couple of months he got to speak to her on a number of occasions before the calls ceased. On 2 January 2006, Avigail again called and said she was worried about ‘A’ who “would not talk about” the situation, saying: “I don’t know what to do.” With a view to trying to get Avigail onside for further contact, Jeff withdrew his appeal on 17 January 2006.
In May he went to St. Petersburg, but found that all information that Avigail had given him turned out to be false. However, Jeff eventually tracked down the address of the grandparents. They were not there, but a neighbor told him that ‘A’ lived there – and Avigail “sometimes” was there – and which school ‘A’ went to.
Jeff went to the school, but teachers said they had “never laid eyes” on Avigail, and always interacted with the grandmother. The neighbor also gave Jeff the telephone number of the grandparents and Jeff’s calls were finally answered after he had returned to Australia – by ‘A’! This led to regular calls.
In June 2007 Jeff went to St. Petersburg to visit ‘A’ and meetings were facilitated by the grandparents. The video clips (shown below) were taken during the visit. Jeff subsequently moved to Moscow and often visited ‘A’ in the years until she was 14 with the help of the grandparents.
When Jeff could no longer contact ‘A’ via the grandparents he went to ‘A’s school. The teachers in the staff room said that ‘A’ no longer live with the grandparents and they were reluctant to help Jeff meet her. However, one of them did tell Jeff what classroom she was in. When ‘A’ saw Jeff she became hysterical and asked the class teacher to “call the police”. Jeff was shocked and returned to Moscow. Several days later Avigail called him and gloated: “Everyone is talking about it.”
Some months later, ‘A’s grandfather called Jeff and asked to meet in Moscow. He told Jeff that Avigail had been trying to destroy the relationship between him and ‘A’. Even though ‘A’ lives “very close” in another apartment, she no longer visits him and hardly talks to him. He feels that he has been “cut-off” from her life. In the past he and his wife spent more time caring for ‘A’ than her mother, but now they are being treated very badly by both ‘A’ and Avigail. The grandfather also told Jeff that for two years after ‘A’ arrived in St. Petersburg he had read to her of a night — and every night she said that she wanted to “go back to Australia”.
Thereafter, Jeff was to have no news of ‘A’ until he found her on Instagram 10 years later in November 2021.