Bluffton boy, reportedly abducted to Mexico by stepfather, reunited with mother

A 9-year-old Bluffton boy has been returned to his mother six months after he reportedly was abducted to Mexico by his stepfather.

Christopher King-Ponce, who had been missing since Feb. 27, was flown to Atlanta on Friday and was reunited there with his mother, Yenny Ponce, according to Ponce's attorney, Pamela Blackshire.

"It's been a long road," said Blackshire. "It's been a lot of hard work and tears, but she persevered and wasn't going to give up on her son."

Earlier in the year, the boy was picked up from his Tennessee school by his stepfather, William Stanley King, of Clarksville, Tenn., who won temporary custody of the child by falsely claiming the mother tried to prostitute the boy through a Craigslist ad.

Authorities continued searching for the boy and King, who was wanted by the Clarksville Police Department and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations on a charge of especially aggravated kidnapping.

King, who also uses the name William Allen Borck, took to Twitter in April to reiterate a claim he made in February that Christopher was facing abuse in Ponce's home.

The S.C. Attorney General's Office and Bluffton Police Department investigated those claims of abuse but ruled them unfounded on Feb. 27, the same day a Tennessee court threw out the emergency order that had granted King temporary custody.

Yenny Ponce said through her attorney in May that she believed King took Christopher to hurt her. A few months earlier, he had threatened her in an email after she canceled a Social Security check that was meant to support her son but had been sent to King for years while the couple lived apart, she said.

In an email to The Leaf-Chronicle of Clarksville, Tenn., last month, King claimed he is the boy's biological father and was protecting his son.

King was captured Thursday on the outskirts of Mexico City. He was flown to Atlanta, where Tennessee authorities were expected to pick him up Monday.

Rebecca Lurye contributed to this report

This story was originally published August 15, 2015 at 11:54 PM with the headline "Bluffton boy, reportedly abducted to Mexico by stepfather, reunited with mother."