Child or infant abduction is every parent’s nightmare. This documentary explores what would drive abductors to use violence to abduct a child. The documentary starts with a case of a baby born in Harlem hospital and it was here that she was abducted…from the hospital… and 19 years later the baby or abductor have not been found.
Usually the baby can be found and returned to the mother in 95% of the cases…this 95% is also reflected in the fact that this is the characteristic number of lone woman abductors.
In cases the abductor steals the baby dressed as one of the nursing staff but in some cases the baby is abandoned if the abductor feels that they have been rumbled and so this makes the search very difficult for the authorities because they do not wish to jeopardise the infant. The abductor often act out a pregnancy in order to feign a pregnancy so that they can get away with the deception. One such example is described in detail in this documentary. The FBI investigators find this to be a characteristic and typical trait in the infant abductor. Tanya Sheldon was given 20yrs imprisonment for her abduction of a new born.
Once the abductor comes under pressure due to her pregnancy act and time scale they can become increasingly violent in order to see their way to the goal of snatching the baby.
Signs:
- Fake Pregnancy
- Increased weight
- Desperation due to pregnancy time-scales.
- Unstable relationship
We see footage of a daylight abduction whilst the mother is dragged behind the abductors car. The offender will usually show off their “new” baby but many people are not convinced that the abductor demonstrates the looks of a new mother…often the baby is simply too old to be passed off as a new born and the abductor is classically arrested.
Abduction of a baby BEFORE a baby is even born is probably the most horrific of cases when the baby is actually cut from the womb !! The case detailed in this documentary demonstrates a complex degree of planning to execute this shocking case. This was a plan which backfired and resulted in the death of this would be offender…a lucky escape for Sarah Brady in this instance… but this is not always the case.
Another horrific case ends in death of almost a whole family. The mother had died in the process of her having her foetus being removed under “surgery” by the abductor. The missing baby was found but the young son had been brutally killed also. This case had a twist because much of this was to do with checking for paternity of the unborn child…any witness no matter how old was murdered. In Chicago, Annette Williams faked her own pregnancy and had all the classic traits of the child abductor and eventually was almost forced to carry the plot through to its conclusion.
Annette Williams and her two accomplices are all serving a life imprisonment sentence.
The snatched foetus is now eleven and has the nickname of “miracle baby” but is struggling to come to terms with the full consequences of the crime and the fact that his own biological father was one of the three in involved in the murders and kidnapping.
Interesting footage from the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children have discovered babies who have been raised by the abductors and image ageing and enhancing software has had success in reacquainting parents and abducted children.
Sadly it seems that there still are those who are prepared to kill for a baby.
