Police Find Missing Texas Baby Safe

By BETSY BLANEY

LUBBOCK, Texas – Soon after Priscilla Nicole Maldonado was born, her mother told police, a woman in medical scrubs would stop by her hospital room, asking questions about the baby. Then she had a kind offer: She wanted the woman’s address so she could give her a swing and some clothes.

Police say that woman was only posing as a nurse, and fled with the newborn when she arrived. After searching for more than a day, detectives found the 5-day-old baby late Monday abandoned in a car seat beneath a condominium carport in 104-degree weather. The woman police believe took her, 33-year-old Stephanie Lynn Anderson Jones, was being held on kidnapping charges.

"I didn’t even want to let her go," mother Erica Ysasaga said outside the hospital, hours after the baby’s recovery. "The doctors wanted to check her and I didn’t want to let go. I didn’t want to stop hugging and kissing her."

Ysasaga said her daughter would remain at University Medical Center overnight for observation. Ysasaga and the baby’s father, Jesse Maldonado, planned to remain with her. A hospital spokesman said Priscilla appeared to be doing well.

Police Lt. Roy Bassett said a tip led police to Jones, and she led police to the baby. Both she and her husband were being questioned. 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 came to the home, Bassett said.

Nurses on duty remembered seeing the woman 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."

Beatrice Madrid, Ysasaga’s grandmother, said that when the suspected kidnapper showed up at the house Sunday, her granddaughter was holding Priscilla alongside a living room lamp with its shade removed. The woman encouraged Ysasaga to bring the baby outside into daylight, Madrid said.

At the time of her abduction, the baby 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.

Ysasaga said the woman told her 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 would go with her, but the woman disappeared with the newborn. Police issued an Amber Alert soon after.

"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.

In trying to gain Ysasaga’s confidence, the woman gave Ysasaga a driver’s license number and Social Security number "so that you have some confidence that you know who I am," Bassett said the woman told Ysasaga. Bassett said neither number matched with the name the woman had given the mother.

The abduction followed by just more than seven months the death of Ysasaga’s and Maldonado’s 2-month-old daughter, Faith Esperanza Maldonado. Rebecca Alvarado, the baby’s grandmother, said Faith choked to death while her mother was burping her in October. Police ruled out foul play.

When the Priscilla was found, Bassett said, she was flushed and "very warm." A detective placed her in his air-conditioned patrol car until paramedics arrived.

"She’s back into our hands. Everybody’s happy," Jesse Madrid, the baby’s great-uncle, said. "We couldn’t have asked for more."