(Courtesy photo)
By ALEXANDREA BAILEY
editor@portisabelsouthpadre.com
SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, TX—A child missing from her South Padre Island family since the summer returned home last week.
Rilee June Crouch, age four, was found in Panama, reports the Crouch family.
Escorted by U.S. Marshalls, Lillian Buntin, the child’s mother, landed in Dallas, Texas, on Sunday night, Dec. 29. Rilee was reported missing since July 2, 2024. After a snag in customs due to Lillian’s “wanted” status, the 29-year-old mother and Rilee took American Airlines Flight 6481 from Dallas to Harlingen that night, according to a spokesperson for the Crouch family.
Lillian was arraigned the following day on South Padre Island. Lillian was served with house arrest, equipped with an electronic monitoring device, an order to not leave Cameron County, and given a $100,000 bond, a number much lower than the $1-million dollar bond initially requested by the state, according to court officials. She is facing a charge of “interference with child custody,” a state jail felony. If charged, the maximum punishment she could face is two-years in a state jail facility, according to a South Padre Island judge.
Lillian is the daughter of Bart Buntin, and the two are well-known members of the Buntin family. Lobo Del Mar Café, located at 204 Palm St, South Padre Island, is a family-owned business operated by the Buntins.
Dakota Lee Crouch is Rilee’s father. According to court records, he married Lillian in December 2019, and the two filed for a “No Fault” divorce on June 7, 2022. “The marriage has become insupportable because of discord,” Lillian’s Original Counterpetition for Divorce states.
Three SPIPD reports from Oct. 12, 13 & 17, 2023, cite child custody disputes involving Dakota and Lillian. Rilee and Lillian disappeared after Dakota dropped their daughter off with Lillian for a court-ordered visitation on July 2, 2024.
Police records further indicate that after Lillian failed to appear at an emergency hearing on July 29, 2024, A Writ of Attachment ordering law enforcement to retrieve Rilee and deliver her to her father Dakota was issued on July 30, signed by presiding judge David Sanchez. The order also suspended Lillian’s visitation and access to the child. However, the mother and daughter were nowhere to be found.
After being missing for close to two months, a spokesperson for the family, Lillian’s uncle, Benton Little, alleged that not a single member of the family had heard from Lillian and Rilee and were clueless to their whereabouts. Little alleged that the last time he saw Lillian, shortly before her disappearance, he “attempted to convince her with her attorney to give the child to the father as the court order required.”
“Where and when did she go, who took Lillian, or who did Lillian go with…we don’t have the answer, but we will continue to put our trust in what we know is true: Jesus Christ will never leave us and never forsake us,” read a statement released to the Port Isabel-South Padre Press by the family.
The mother and daughter’s disappearance sparked a social media uproar in the Lower Laguna Madre. Cyndee Bailey [no relation’s to this report’s writer], Rilee’s paternal grandmother, posted almost daily in local Facebook groups, attempting to spread awareness of her disappearance in an attempt to locate her granddaughter.
She created a Facebook page titled “WHERE IS RILEE CROUCH” (Upon Rilee’s return, the page has now been renamed “JUSTICE 4 RILEE CROUCH”) and began claiming that the Buntin family was a “cult” that “didn’t believe in shared custody.” This garnered a mix of polarizing responses across the board, many rallying along with Bailey, and many coming to the defense of the Buntins. Junior Buntin, Lillian’s little brother and Rilee’s uncle, created his own Facebook page titled “Lillian and Rilee’s Story,” where he chronicled abuse Lillian allegedly endured by Dakota. The page has not been updated since October 2024.
Dakota alleges that the “[Buntin] family kept trying to paint a nasty picture/narrative that [he] was abusive.”
An affidavit signed by Lillian dated June 27, 2022, the same day the couple filed for divorce, alleges Dakota had assaulted Lillian in February 2020 and his father. It also states that Lillian alleged Dakota attacked her verbally on June 25, 2022. Dakota’s father denied being assaulted by his son. A SPIPD report states that on Feb. 21, 2021, Lillian had come to the police department lobby earlier that morning and reported that after a verbal altercation with Dakota, “he grabbed her arm very tightly causing her to fear for her safety and left the residence to her father’s residence.” The report was filed by Officer Lance Hobbs the following day. On June 26, 2022, according to a SPIPD report, Hobbs met with Lillian in the police department lobby again. She reported that a month earlier, on May 13, 2022, she and Dakota were arguing and he had allegedly assaulted her.
According to the State, their intelligence indicated that Lillian took Rilee to Mexico, where Lillian has dual citizenship, and attempted to fly her to Turkey last December 2024, using forged papers. The State says the upon their arrival in the country, Turkish officials recognized the fraudulent documents and deported her to Panama. There, she and Rilee were unable to leave the airport, due to their lack of valid papers and a U.S. passport. The State said at her arraignment that she was accompanied by her uncle while stuck in the Panamanian airport for two days.
“Intelligence told us that they [the Buntins] have ties to Isreal. We feel like she [Lillian] was going to try to take her [Rilee] into a war zone…She then exposed her to dangers sitting in a foreign country. The United States government had to work to get her back solely because we didn’t want the daughter to be put into Panamanian CPS custody,” said a State attorney at Lillian’s arraignment.
In rebuttal, Lillian’s attorney “reminded” the court that “This evolves originally from a domestic issue – from a divorce gone wrong.”
“Although I was not involved in that divorce, I have learned enough for me to understand why my client might possibly feel that her or her child were in danger,” said Lillian’s attorney. “Where she went and where she didn’t go, or where she didn’t end up going – these are all allegations from the State.”
According to Lillian’s attorney, she voluntarily agreed to surrender Rilee to Dakota’s possession.
Bailey said her son, Dakota, was elated that Rilee had been found. According to the court, Rilee currently remains in his custody. Bailey had originally heard the news of her granddaughter’s return from local musician Leslie Blasing. Blasing has been acting as a spokesperson and advocate for the Bailey/Crouch family and Rilee’s return. Blasing even organized multiple rallies with the help of Bailey to spread awareness of Dakota’s missing daughter. The rallies were held outside of Lobo Del Mar in late summer 2024.
“I am just happy that they found her,” said Bailey. “At this point, I was starting to be really concerned because no one had seen or heard of any life. And when someone goes missing, obviously that becomes a big concern…Is she even alive?”
In an interview with the PRESS in early September 2024, Junior also shared concern that his sister and niece may have been injured, or worse, had passed.
The PRESS reached out to Little, Junior and Dakota for comment on this ongoing situation, as well as the South Padre Island Police Department, but no response was received as of the time of publication.
All parties are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
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