An Amish man convicted in the grisly 1993 disembowelment murder of his wife returned to Crawford County last week and seized his 17-year-old daughter, Mary, after his son hijacked the horse-drawn buggy in which she was riding, family members said.

Edward Gingerich spent five years in prison after he was convicted of involuntary manslaughter but mentally ill for stomping his wife, Katie, to death in the family home and then cutting out her organs. He is being sought in the seizure, which took place along a rural road Wednesday night.

State police are attempting to locate the girl.

Friends of the Gingerich family said Mary was traveling with an aunt near the family's home in the Amish settlement of Brownhill, Crawford County, when an older brother leapt into the buggy and took the reins. According to a court document filed seeking the return of the girl, the brother then drove the buggy to a barn owned by Mr. Gingerich's brother, Atlee.

The door to the barn was locked, trapping the aunt inside and Mary Gingerich was forced to leave in a waiting car with her father.

"Ed Gingerich was there and spoke with Mary and told her she needed to go with him or he would call the police and the police would make her go with him," said Barbara Mountjoy, an attorney for Daniel and Mary Gingerich, the girl's grandparents.

The elder Gingeriches were granted an emergency court order last week giving them custody of Mary and ordering her return.

So far, authorities have no idea where the girl was taken. A family friend, Julie Bair, said last night that state police and FBI agents met with the elder Gingeriches, who fear for the girl's safety. The petition seeking her return said that Edward Gingerich had been accused in Michigan in the past year of assaulting a woman with a knife.

On Friday, state police in Meadville arrested two of Edward Gingerich's brothers, Atlee, 44, and Joseph, 43. They are charged with criminal conspiracy to conceal the whereabouts of a child.

Atlee and Joseph Gingerich are being held in Crawford County jail in lieu of $30,000 bond each.

The Gingerich murder case drew national attention at the time, and spurred a professor at nearby Edinboro University, Jim Fisher, to write a book.

Yesterday, Mr. Fisher said the apparent abduction is part of a years-old theological dispute that has riven both the Crawford County Amish community and the Gingerich family.

"There's a religious war going on between an overly aggressive, evangelical form of Christianity and Old Order Amish theology," Mr. Fisher said. "It's got that community divided in half."

Edward Gingerich and his brothers, Atlee and Joseph, have adopted a theology that argues that religious faith alone is sufficient for salvation while the Old Order community insists on doing good works as well, Mr. Fisher said.

Edward Gingerich belongs to a splinter group known as Faith Builders, and has recruited his children into the group. Mary Gingerich is being raised by her grandparents, both of whom remain Old Order members.

Following his release from prison in 1998, Edward Gingerich lived for several years at Harmony House, an Amish community near Evart, Mich., according to Mr. Fisher, who occasionally kept tabs on his whereabouts. According to Mr. Fisher, Mr. Gingerich was asked to leave the community after a falling out with his bishop and settled for a time in Indiana.

Ms. Bair said police are thought to be looking in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Indiana for the girl.