Thread: Keep your fingers crossed guys!!!!

Police detain suspect in Abilene baby-snatching case
Mom dragged 30 feet as abductor gets away
Associated Press

ABILENE - Authorities detained a woman with a baby in West Texas today, and the baby appeared to match the description of the one abducted the day before in a Wal-Mart parking lot.

The woman was stopped in Quanah, about 125 miles north of Abilene, about 9:30 a.m., Hardeman County Sheriff Randy L. Akers said.

"We're waiting on positive identification out of Abilene," he said. "Everything we've got so far looks like it might be the right one."

Akers said Abilene police were en route to verify 1-month-old Nancy Crystal Chavez's identity. Meanwhile, the infant's parents arrived at the Abilene police station.

Texas' first statewide Amber Alert was in effect today as authorities looked for the infant, who was abducted Tuesday from her minivan when her mother turned around to stow a shopping cart.

The mother screamed as she desperately tried to stop the getaway car and was dragged more than 30 feet in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart Supercenter in Abilene, police said.

The FBI, the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Texas Rangers were helping Abilene police in the investigation.

The child was wearing a white-and-pink shirt with a sunflower print. She had on black shoes, pink socks and a pink diaper cover, police said.

"I have put this in the hands of the Lord," said the baby's father, Salvador Chavez, his voice trembling. "Hopefully, someone sees her, and we'll get our child as soon as possible."

Police said Margarita Chavez had just finished shopping about 4:30 p.m. Tuesday when she placed her three children, including a 2- and a 6-year-old, in her minivan.

She left the sliding door open as she stepped about 10 feet away to return a shopping cart, then saw a woman pulling the infant and car seat, which had not been fastened to the seat, out of the van and into another car.

"When you have this type of offense and this type of crime with an infant child, you can expect the people if they find out about it to want to get involved. That's exactly what we've seen," Abilene police Sgt. Kim Vickers said.

Margarita Chavez was taken to an Abilene hospital and treated for scratches, her husband said.

A man heard Chavez's screams and smashed into the passenger side of the fleeing car, possibly breaking the window, police said. Authorities said a second person may have been in the car with the abductor.

A surveillance video captured the car circling the parking lot in "some type of stalking manner" before the abduction, Vickers said.

Vickers said the video from the store parking lot was distributed to television stations, but the video was too grainy to show the car's license plate number.

The vehicle was described as late 1990s turquoise, mid-size, four- door sedan, possibly a Pontiac Grand Am or Buick Skylark.

The suspect was described as heavy set, 5-foot-6 to 5-8, with shoulder-length brownish blonde hair. She is believed to be in her late 20s or early 30s.

Cathy Nahirny of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children said the suspect fits the profile of a typical infant abductor: A woman between the age of 15 to 50 who often is overweight.

Many times, infant adductors are involved in rocky relationships and take babies out of a companion's desire for a child, Nahirny said. In most cases, she said, the abduction is an attempt to show they can provide "good" care to a child.

Infant abductions are rare in the United States, Nahirny said, with just 216 infant cases between 1983 and July.

"Given the millions of babies born each year, the chance that this is going to happen is very, very rare," she said.

Tuesday's abduction happened the day after Gov. Rick Perry announced the creation of a statewide Texas Amber Alert System.

The alert, which is being implemented over the next 30 days, is designed to help find abducted children by transmitting the information to television and radio stations.

The Abilene area does not yet have the system, a spokesman for KTXS television said. A dispatcher with the Department of Public Safety in Abilene said various police departments were notified of the abduction when the governor's office sent out faxes to the news media detailing the abduction.

Texas Department of Transportation officials programmed electronic highway signs with information on the missing child.

Abilene is about 170 miles west of Dallas.

OMG!!! I hope it is the baby and she is placed home safe with mamma soon!

Quanah TX? My God, that's like a stones throw from me. TINY little town.

This world is so messed up... that poor mother. I hope she gets her little one back...