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Four people have been arrested in the January kidnapping and killing of a baby girl, and police are now saying she was kidnapped as part of an elaborate scheme to pass her off as another woman's child. Three-week-old Eliza De La Cruz was kidnapped from her home in the 100 block of West 51st Street in Long Beach on January 3. Her kidnapper broke into the home at about 6 p.m., shot her mother, father and uncle, then fled with baby De La Cruz. De La Cruz's body was found the next day in a strip mall dumpster in Imperial Beach.
Nearly three months later, police have arrested Giseleangelique Rene D’Milian, 47; Anthony McCall, 29; Todd Boudreaux, 44; and Charisse Shelton, 33. D'Millan and McCall have both been charged with kidnapping, attempted murder, conspiracy and murder. The other two are charged with being accessories after the fact, City News Service reports.
Long Beach Police Chief Robert Luna said in a press conference today that D'Milian had told her boyfriend that she was pregnant and had given birth to his twins in December of 2014 while visiting another country. Luna said police believe she never gave birth to any children at all, but that "in order to keep up the deception, she needed to produce two children to matched the twins' ages."
So, police allege that D'Millian came up with a plan with McCall to kidnap De La Cruz and pass her off as D'Milian's own. Investigators are still not clear why De La Cruz was later killed.
Luna admits that their investigation moved slowly in the beginning. De La Cruz's parents and uncle were critically injured, and those injuries prevented them from initially being able to provide many details to police. However, De La Cruz's mother eventually recalled an encounter she'd had the day her baby was kidnapped. She had taken a public bus with baby Eliza and, after the pair exited the bus at Del Amo Blvd. and Long Beach Blvd., she was stopped by a woman in a Range Rover who inquired about the baby. Police say that woman was D'Milian. At the time, the mother didn't think the conversation was strange, and walked home after the encounter.
Police were able to view surveillance footage that they say shows D'Milian following the bus before the mother and baby exited. They believe that McCall was also following, but in a separate car. It was less than two hours after the conversation between De La Cruz's mother and D'Milian that police allege McCall broke into the home, shot the three adults and fled with the baby.
Police released pieces of surveillance footage from the bus encounter as well as sketches of two suspects last week. D'Milian, McCall, Boudreaux and Shelton are set to be arraigned on Friday, the L.A. Times reports.
