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American Morning

Kidnapper Told Police Baby One Day Old

Aired August 15, 2002 - 08:02   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: The second kidnapping in a week, a second happy ending now. A baby snatched from a store parking lot in Texas back home today.
Ed Lavandera in Abilene with more now -- Ed, good morning.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Bill.

The range of emotions here over a course of 24 hours in Abilene -- fear when the baby was abducted, anxiety as to when no one knew where she was and the happy ending that took place here. That explains why when police officers arrived here at the law enforcement center in Abilene, Texas, holding little baby Nancy, several dozen people turned out to welcome her home.

Police say little baby Nancy was unharmed. She came back safely. The only wounds showing visible were on those of Margarita Chavez, who had the scars visible from her attempts to try to save the baby from being abducted.

She had just turned away a few seconds to return a shopping cart in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart here in Abilene, and that's all it took for the abductor to drop in and snatch away her one month old baby.

As far as the suspect in this case, police accuse Paula Lynn Roach, a 24-year-old woman here from Abilene, who is a former prison guard here in Texas, as well. Police have charged her with aggravated kidnapping. She's being held on $200,000 bond. Police tell me that when she was pulled over yesterday about 120 miles north-northeast of here, of Abilene, that she had initially told police that it was her baby, she had just had it the day before. And that was the story apparently she had told her own family. And police say that even her own family wanted to believe that story, as well.

But a tip coming from Quanah, Texas turned out to turn them on to this person. When they pulled her over, the cop took one look at the baby and they knew instantly that that baby was definitely not one day old. And that's when they started believing that they had found the little baby, Nancy Chavez, the little girl that they had been looking for for the last 24 hours -- Bill.

HEMMER: Ed, there was a report yesterday that said the woman had told police there was a void in her life. Have they talked more about her comments, the police, about that?

LAVANDERA: They have kind of explored that issue, that it's for some reason that Roach perhaps had mentioned to them in the course of speaking and investigation yesterday, that Roach was trying to fill some sort of void of not having a baby of her own, and perhaps that's why she committed that abduction.

They continue to question her. By the way, she will be arraigned here in Abilene later this morning and she's still being held in the county jail as they continue to explore her motives behind this attempted kidnapping.

HEMMER: Thanks, Ed.

Ed Lavandera in Abilene, Texas.

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