A missing 5-day-old baby was found Monday evening, and police arrested a woman suspected of abducting the child more than a day earlier after she had posed as a nurse in medical scrubs. Priscilla Nicole Maldonado was taken to University Medical Center. Hospital spokesman Greg Bruce said the baby was fine.
Police said the infant was found alone in a car seat beneath a carport in 104-degree weather. It was not clear how long she had been outside before authorities arrived. "The doctors wanted to check her and I didn't want to let go," said Erica Ysasaga, the infant's mother. "I didn't want to stop hugging and kissing her." The baby was to remain at the hospital overnight for observation.
Lt. Roy Bassett said police rescued the child after a caller suggested they contact a man in Lubbock. Police called the man and asked if his wife had recently had a baby. The man said she had, but his answers had "obvious flaws," Bassett said.
Stephanie Lynn Anderson Jones, 33, was being held on kidnapping charges. Detectives were questioning her and her husband. Jones closely matched the description the baby's family had provided of the woman who had visited them several times in the hospital last week and disappeared with their daughter Sunday after mother and child had gone home, Bassett said. Police Chief Claude Jones said she led officers to the baby.
Earlier Monday, police had studied hospital surveillance video and went door to door in a race to find the newborn and the woman who stole her. The woman had apparently blended in with hospital staff in the days before the child's disappearance and befriended the baby's mother.
Nurses on duty at the time the woman visited the newborn and her family remembered seeing her on repeated visits to the hospital, police said. But no one asked why she was not wearing the correct color of scrubs or why she had no identification badge, officials said. Nurses from doctors' offices and other medical facilities often wear scrubs and sometimes visit newborns and their families, Bassett said. "From what I understand, they don't check and identify every possible visitor who comes to the hospital," he said. "She didn't make any attempt to take the baby from the hospital and didn't spark any suspicions."
The abduction followed by seven months the death of Ysasaga's and Jesse Maldonado's 2-month-old daughter, who choked to death while being burped in October. Bassett said police ruled out foul play in the baby's death.
In the hospital, the kidnapper led the mother to believe she was a nurse by dressing like one, asking questions about the baby and retrieving towels, the family said. When Ysasaga was released, the woman asked for her address, saying she had a swing and some clothes for the baby. "She was concerned all the time about my baby, so I thought she was a nurse," Ysasaga told KAMC-TV.
At the time of her abduction, the baby girl had jaundice, a common complication in newborns that causes a yellowing of the skin and the whites of the eyes because of a buildup of pigment in the blood.
On Sunday, the woman visited the family's home and told the mother she wanted to put the newborn in a baby pageant. "I said, `No, my baby is sick. She can't be out in public,'" Ysasaga said. "She said they would pay me $100 and my baby would win stuff." The woman then said she had relatives on the next block and wanted to show them the baby, according to Ysasaga. Ysasaga said she wanted to go with her, but the woman disappeared with the newborn while Ysasaga was momentarily distracted by her young son. "My son ran ahead of me so I tried to reach over and grab him and when I did that, I turned around. Just like that, my baby was gone," she said.
To gain Ysasaga's confidence, the woman gave Ysasaga a driver's license number and Social Security number, according to police. But neither number matched the name the woman had given the mother.
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