DENVER — We first told you about Rob Manzanares’ battle to win custody of his 4-year-old daughter back in January.

He is the father who registered as an unmarried dad right here in Colorado to have custody of his unborn daughter.

But the birth mother, Carrie Terry, left the state in her seventh month of pregnancy, went to Utah where some people say there are more favorable laws toward mothers. She gave her child up for adoption there to her brother’s family.

Rob says she deceived him, lied to the courts and has left the birth father fighting to get custody or visitation rights.

The Utah Supreme Court decided in January the case should go back to a lower court for consideration. The thought by many who say Utah adoption laws favor mothers, is that the top court was trying to keep covers from being pulled back on the way adoptions are handled in Utah.

“We wonder if the court saw this case as one that could change the tide and the way adoptions have been handled in the state,” said Wes Hutchins, President of the Utah Adoption Council, who called the decision to send the case back to Colorado and to void the adoption in Utah, a water shed decision.

Manzanares, who has spent nearly $200,000 to regain custody of his daughter, says he is now one step closer to being reunited with his child because the case will now be heard in Colorado.