Man jailed after allegedly taking boy

TULSA, Okla. (AP) -- A man who allegedly took a 4-year-old boy from a Tulsa day-care center was arrested Tuesday in Missouri, police said. <br><br>Timothy Paul Etchison, 29, was arrested in Cuba, Mo.,

Wednesday, May 24th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

TULSA, Okla. (AP) -- A man who allegedly took a 4-year-old boy from a Tulsa day-care center was arrested Tuesday in Missouri, police said.

Timothy Paul Etchison, 29, was arrested in Cuba, Mo., by state troopers in a car that police say was stolen from downtown Tulsa late Monday. He was being held in the Crawford County Jail.

Etchison is accused of taking his common-law nephew, Anitone Kunlenschmidt, from a day-care center Monday morning. The boy was returned uninjured to his own doorstep about 12 hours later.

Tulsa police said Etchison's estranged common-law wife was seeking a protective order against him and would not let him see their child, so he went to the day-care center and took Anitone, the child of his wife's sister.

"We believe it was an act of retribution, since he was not allowed to see his own child," Sgt. Wayne Allen said.

Allen said an employee at the day-care center had allowed the man to take the child because the employee thought he had picked up children there before.

An official with the day-care center said the incident was the first of its kind in the three years the center has been open.