'I still want to see my son'

Almost four months after he left his 11-year-old son in the middle of the night and headed to California, Steven Cross says he still doesn't understand what all the fuss is about -- or why authorities won't allow him to see the boy.

After all, he instructed his son to go stay with their Lakeville neighbors, where he assumed he'd be taken care of.

"I really felt in my mind that he would be safe there," Cross said Wednesday. "That they would take care of him and that there would be no traumatizing experience for him."

After his case sparked nationwide media coverage, Cross is telling his side of the story publicly.

He's not likely to get any sympathy from authorities, who issued a warrant for his arrest shortly after he left. The Dakota County attorney's office has charged him with child neglect. And the county's child protection services placed the boy in protective custody and foster care. The county still prohibits Cross from having any contact with the boy.

Cross says he was severely depressed, confused about his life and about to become homeless when he kissed his son, Sebastian, goodbye and left, instructing him by letter to ride his bike to a neighbors' home so he wouldn't have to live out of a van with his dad.

"I still want to see my son," Cross said. "I still want to hear from him that he is OK."

A Dakota County judge has already denied one motion to allow him to see the boy. Cross will try again at a December hearing, after he completes a psychiatric examination.

Cross's actions also ignited a national controversy -- a fact the 60-year-old architect discovered while in the San Luis Obispo jail in California awaiting extradition.

"I'm unbelievably surprised at the attention this has gotten," Cross said. "I told the jailer, this has gone national."

A lapse in judgment?

On Wednesday, Cross detailed what he did and where he went in an effort, he said, to get people to understand that he was in a dire situation financially and emotionally.

"Mr. Cross was under an overwhelming amount of stress, suffering from situational depression," said Jeffrey Priest, the attorney representing Cross. "I think he had a temporary lapse in judgment."

Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom, who charged Cross with child neglect, refused to comment Wednesday. But at the time Cross was arrested, Backstrom characterized Cross' actions as "extra unusual" and "disturbing."

Cross said he left just days before the Dakota County Sheriff was to take his home, a foreclosure he kept from Sebastian for almost two years.

He left a letter to his son telling him to ride his bike to the home of neighbors John and Joanne Pahl and give them letters he had left explaining what he was doing and why.

"I didn't have any other relatives to turn to," said Cross, now living with ex-neighbors in Lakeville. "The Pahls were like his family. Riding over there on his bike alone, it was something he did all the time."

But the Pahls, who declined to comment on Wednesday, were unaware of Cross' predicament or that Cross intended for them to keep Sebastian. They called police, who immediately called in child protection services.

Cross said he was in a daze as he drove west for days, heading to Cambria, Calif., to find distant relatives he had not seen in decades and whose names he did not even remember. He never found them.

He also never contacted Sebastian or the Pahls, saying he had given the boy his cell phone the day he left on July 18. Also, he said, he had asked an old girlfriend to check in with the boy and the Pahls to make sure he had arrived safely.

About four days later, when Cross reached California, he bought a cell phone and called the ex-girlfriend, who told him his son was with the Pahls.

During the next few weeks, as he worked in a deli in Cambria to earn gas money to look for the relatives, Cross did not call Sebastian or the Pahls.

"Once I knew that he was with the Pahls I knew that he was safe and I knew that he was happy," Cross explained. "People come up to me [now] and argue about why did you do this and why didn't you do that. I was trying to make things as smooth as possible. But it just didn't come out right."

The letters in part gave written permission for the boy to stay with the Pahls until the end of August. One letter also recommended the Pahls be considered as a foster family for the boy. Finally, Cross wrote that he was selling all of his possessions in his home to the Pahls for $1.

Cross said he left because "I couldn't make anything work in Minnesota" and needed time to come up with a plan.

"In the letters I was just saying, watch my kid for a month, give me a month and see if I can get something going," he said.

Cross had legal custody of the boy from the time he was a year old. The boy's mother gave up custody and Cross had told his son she was dead.

One of the first things Cross wrote in his note to his son was that his mother is alive. The mother is now involved in the child protection case and regularly sees her son. The boy is staying with his mother's sister in the Twin Cities.

It is unclear how the mother's status with her son will change, if at all, as the reunification process goes forward.

Messages to the mother's attorney seeking comment were not returned Wednesday.

"I never felt or wrote anything that said I was abandoning my son," Cross said. "I couldn't see putting him in a van and being homeless. I wish things were better. I keep going back and thinking, maybe I should've put him in the van."

Heron Marquez • 952-746-3281