Latest update September 1st, 2024 12:59 AM
Jan 15, 2014 News
After 25 long hours of distress and dismay, through the efforts of ranks attached to the Criminal Investigation Department of the Vigilance Police Station, a 34-year-old mother was last night reunited with her baby girl who was allegedly abducted from a Buxton, East Coast Demerara Day Care facility on Monday.
The baby was rescued from a house at Pouderoyen, West Bank Demerara, after detectives were led there by the alleged abductor, who had earlier undergone intense interrogation.
Samantha Prince’s agony was cut short when 4-month-old Miracle Angel Prince was returned to her at the Vigilance Police Station at about 20:00 hours last evening.
Earlier yesterday, 19-year-old teacher Candace Adonis of Vigilance, East Coast Demerara who was wanted by the police for allegedly abducting the baby, turned herself into the police.
Reports are that on Monday, the young lady while pretending to be a relative of the baby, identified herself as ‘Michelle Prince,’ the baby’s aunt, to the manager of the day care and somehow managed to take off with the child.
Adonis disappeared without a trace and it was only until yesterday afternoon that her relatives were able to contact her.
Meanwhile, word of the baby’s abduction had spread through the village and she was fingered as the prime suspect.
After facing pressure from her family and friends, Adonis was escorted to the Vigilance Police Station where she later assisted the police with the investigation.
After being questioned by the police and encouraged by the family’s pastor who arrived at the station, the alleged abductor led ranks to the house of her friends in Pouderoyen.
A source close to the investigation told Kaieteur News that when the ranks arrived at the house,
they found a man who was occupying the bottom flat of the two-storey house.
The man reportedly told the officers that Adonis was a friend of his wife whom they had not seen in a very long time. He claimed that the young lady had approached him and his wife on Monday requesting that they take care of “her baby”.
He stated that both he and his wife were unaware that Adonis had a baby, but she assured them that she recently had the child while she was residing in Barbados. According to the source, Adonis asked the couple to take care of the baby for a short while, since she was having problems with her brother with whom she lived.
The man, who the police later detained, reportedly explained that the young lady stayed for awhile then rushed off, stating that she would return for the four-month-old. He, however, was utterly shocked when instead of the young lady returning, police ranks arrived asking for an abducted baby.
“The man coulda drop dead,” a source said, adding that the man was totally unaware of the role he and his family had played in the crime.
Meanwhile, when Kaieteur News contacted Samantha Prince, she explained the events leading up to her daughter’s abduction. Prince, a sanitary officer of the University of Guyana, said that due to the constraints of her job, she had decided to use another day care facility for her daughter, and at about 9:30 hours on Monday she took her to be enrolled at the said day care.
“Yesterday she start going to the day care. The hours that I working make I tek she to this new day care because this it more convenient. I carry me baby and I talk with the head of the day care,” she said.
Prince explained that she had not fully completed the registration process.
“When I go yesterday morning that is when she give me the form to full up, but I didn’t understand everything on the form, so I tell her I gun take it to work and carry it back, so I do that,” the mother continued.
“I carry she about 9:29, but when I go fuh me daughter now, the day care lady said that the aunty collect me baby,” Prince related.
However, the mother claimed that she was perplexed when she heard what transpired since she does not have any amicable relationship with her sister-in-law, who would have been the baby’s only real aunt.
“So I ask ‘A aunty collect me baby? Me ain’t lef’ no aunty fuh collect me baby.’ I tell the girl that my daughter, my son-in-law or me gun come fuh she,” the worried mother had related a few hours before their reunion.
She described her reaction when she realised that the person who now had her little Miracle was an utterly unfamiliar name “They said Miracle aunty come for she, Miracle aunty Michelle Prince. So I seh y’all give away me chile?” Prince recalled. “I done start freaking and going crazy because I seh me ain’t know who is tha’ and we eventually go to the station to make a report.”
According to Samantha, the police immediately began investigating her case. “When I was at the station, they ask me who is the baby aunty, so I tell them who she was and I seh she ain’t gonna come pick up me daughter, cause me and she don’t talk.”
“So I end up hearing the description and I realise I know the girl who tek Miracle. The description dey give me is fuh this li’l girl that used to live next door to we in Melanie. I used to babysit she brother, she sisters and cousins.”
When asked whether there was any known conflict which could have resulted in the abduction, the woman said “I used to take care of them when I never used to work. We ain’t got no problem, so I don’t know why she would take me baby. We ain’t got no problem, no problem, no no no problem.”
The woman stated that she is the one caring for her family in Guyana and her husband who is currently in Barbados did not respond “nicely” to hearing that his daughter was missing.
Meanwhile, when Kaieteur News interviewed Seatta Ried, the head of the day care, she related how stressed she had become over the situation.
She explained that it was Miracle’s first day in her care. “It was the first day that the baby come to the day care. Her mother came and didn’t full out the form and so on. She tell me she gotta rush and go to work; that she gonna come and do it later.”
A distraught Reid explained to this publication that “The mother tell me that she, she daughter, she son-in-law or the baby grandmother could come for her. So about 3:30 when this young lady come for the baby, I was a bit confused.”
She added, however, that the convincing young lady managed to provide her with a name which she unknowingly accepted as a possible family member. “She identify herself as Michelle Prince and I decided to have one of the girls hand over the baby.”
The young lady was later seen flagging down a bus taking the baby away with her. According to Reid, the baby was “fussing earlier that day and one of the girls had to give her breast milk” but she stayed with the girl.
The day care manager explained how confused she was when the mother of the baby arrived to uplift her baby later that day. “Then about 5:30, the baby mother came for the baby and I told her aunt Michelle Prince collect the baby, and she told me that didn’t know who it was.”
She claimed that she only realised the error when one of her workers then told her that she handed the baby over to the then unknown individual . However, according to her, that was too late.
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