Boy, Oh Boy, Oh Boy...

[January 11, 2008]  OSLO, Norway (AP) -- A 33-year-old Czech woman managed to spend several months posing as a 13-year-old boy named "Adam," fooling teachers and child care workers in Norway, police said Thursday.

Barbora Skrlova was deported back to the Czech Republic and detained on Wednesday, Czech police spokeswoman Andrea Prochazkova said. Authorities said she was undergoing psychiatric evaluation.

A woman who supplied a Czech passport enrolled "Adam" at the Marienlyst school near Oslo in September. However, authorities say it actually was the 5-foot-2 Skrlova, her breasts bound and head shaved.

"We did react to Adam's behavior. But it's not easy to know. Children at that age can be so different," school principal Ingjerd Eriksen told the Oslo newspaper Dagbladet.

Czech authorities are now looking into whether Skrlova should be charged with identity theft and misleading authorities, police said.

It apparently was not the first time Skrlova had fooled authorities by posing as a child, which in Norway offered her food and shelter. Czech police say she posed as a 13-year-old girl adopted by a woman in the Czech city of Brno.

That woman in Brno is now suspected of abusing of her two younger biological sons, and Skrlova is key witness in the case. Facing an investigation, Skrlova left with friends for Denmark and ended up in Norway.

"Not even we have been able to figure out what is up and down in this case," Norwegian police attorney Sven T. Roer said.

Skrlova fled the Czech Republic after being sought by police as a key witness in a high-profile 2007 child abuse case believed to involve an obscure religious sect, Norwegian and Czech news reports said.

In mid-December, "Adam" disappeared from an Oslo children's home, prompting police to launch a nationwide search and publish photographs on Jan. 4 of the missing "child." Tips led them to find Skrlova in the Arctic city on Tromsoe.

"It turned out that the so-called missing teenager was a 33-year-old woman," Norwegian police said in a statement.

[Associated Press; By DOUG MELLGREN]

Associated Press Writer Ondrej Hejma in Prague, Czech Republic contributed to this report.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.