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Woman Who Stashed Kidnapped Newborn In Tote Bag Needed Baby Girl to Prove to Ex She Was Pregnant
The Garden Grove woman suspected of trying to stash and steal a newborn girl from an Orange County hospital Monday may have wanted the baby to prove to her ex-husband she had been pregnant. She may also have been plotting a hospital kidnapping in Anaheim just a few days earlier.48-year-old Grisel Ramirez was arrested when she attempted to leave the Garden Grove Medical Center with a newborn girl in her tote bag. Ramirez, wearing scrubs and posing as a hospital worker, had been in the mother's room, and had taken the baby after she suggested the mom take a shower to prep for a doctor's visit, according to the OC Register.
But an ankle monitor on the baby went off, and Ramirez was questioned as she tried to leave the facility.
It turns out Ramirez was identified as the woman who had been quizzing moms-to-be at Western Medical Center-Anaheim on July 26, and had made one pregnant lady so edgy with all her questioning about due dates and the baby's sex that the expectant mother notified hospital staff, who in turn notified authorities. Hospital staff there say they were called by a woman asking about the patients' to check on their delivery status, though no information was given to her.
It's possible Ramirez was trying to get a baby the not-so-old-fashioned way following a split from her husband. Ramirez, a mom to three adult children, had reportedly told her ex she was expecting a baby girl. Except she wasn't preggers:
"The due date came and went and she needed to produce a baby girl in order to be creditable," [Garden Grove police Lt. Jeff] Nightengale said. "The husband had no knowledge of her trying to kidnap a baby and he was just as surprised as we were that she was going to steal a child to fulfill a baby promise."
Ramirez, who works as a waitress, is being held without bail, and is expected to be arraigned Wednesday.
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