Kidnapped Missouri Baby Found Alive & Well

You may have heard in the news this last week or so about little Abby Woods, a newborn baby girl kidnapped not long after her birth by someone who slashed her mother in the throat while snatching the child from her arms in Missouri.

It is now being reported that this little trooper has been found alive and well. She had been kidnapped by one Shannon Beck, a local woman who lived just a skip away from the baby's home and had miscarried her own child recently, but was returned to her family by Beck's sister-in-law, Dorothy Torrez, who quickly noticed something fishy:

On Sunday, Beck contacted Torrez to say she had given birth, Corvington said. Beck had been pregnant but apparently miscarried shortly before her own child was to be born.

Torrez visited Beck on Monday and urged her to take the child to a doctor, the FBI agent said. Beck agreed, and Torrez accompanied her to St. Louis on Tuesday, about 45 miles away.

Torrez noticed what appeared to be makeup on the baby's forehead, Corvington said. When she rubbed the forehead, makeup came off what was covering a small birthmark.

In publicizing the abduction, police had described Abby's strawberry-red birthmark. Her suspicions aroused, Torrez confronted Beck, who gave her the baby, Corvington said.

Torrez contacted police, and the baby was handed over to authorities around 5 p.m. Tuesday.

The baby has since been reunited with her family.

I just LOVE happy endings.

(Although I would advise that whoever wrote the headline for the second story might want to be just a LEETLE more careful next time. Heh.)