Tag: Kidnapping
Mom Stuffs Newborn Into Duffel Bag After Baby Tests Positive for Meth Following Childbirth
A Merced woman faces child endangerment charges after she allegedly stuffed her newborn into a duffel bag and kidnapped the baby from a hospital in Fresno, according to reports.
Police say 35-year-old Stephanie Belden didn’t want her newborn baby to be taken away after testing positive for meth during childbirth on Aug. 17, the Merced Sun-Star reported. Police met with her three hours prior to let her know the child was going to be detained.
“The biological mother wasn’t very happy with that, went back up, made her way into the maternity ward and cut off the alarm bracelet off the newborn baby, put the newborn baby in a duffel bag and walked out of the hospital,” Fresno Police Department Lt. Jay Struble told Fresno television station KFSN.
A nurse noticed the child was missing around 7:30 p.m. and officers were called at 7:36 p.m. Belden was arrested at 7:58 p.m. after police found her “hiding” at her house.
She is charged with kidnapping, child stealing, child endangerment and a parole violation.
Minnesota Girl Kidnapped, Swims Across Lake to Escape After 29 Days of Abuse
She is “an unbelievable young woman.” That’s what a police chief had to say after a 15-year-old girl escaped from captors who allegedly assaulted her over the course of a month.
The teen reportedly left her home in Alexandria, Minn., on Aug. 8 with a family acquaintance who said he needed her help, reports the Echo Press.
When she arrived at Thomas Barker’s home in Carlos, however, she encountered a “nightmare,” says Alexandria Police Chief Rick Wyffels. Barker, 32—soon joined by his roommate and later a friend—restrained the teen with zip ties.
At no point over the next 28 days was she left alone as she was physically and sexually assaulted and moved to a cornfield and then a home on a lake in Grant County, Wyffels says.
But on the 29th day, the 15-year-old saw an opportunity to escape. When her captors left to get lunch on Tuesday, she escaped and “bravely ran door to door” without finding help, Wyffels says.
Finally, she swam across the 150-acre lake to a property and encountered its owner, who’d just returned from work because he’d forgotten something. “It was like somebody shined a big beam of light on me,” the man tells WCCO.
“I was in the right place at the right time.” Just as police arrived, the teen—later treated for minor injuries, per NBC News—spotted a car belonging to one of her captors whom police quickly apprehended, the property owner adds.
All three alleged captors are now in custody. Barker; Joshua Holby, 31; and Steven Powers, 20, are each held on probable cause for false imprisonment, kidnapping, and assault.
Wyffels says authorities are still trying to determine a motive.