NATIONAL BRIEFING / LOUISIANA
A Louisiana woman is accused of trading two young children in her care for a pet cockatoo and $175 cash from a couple who had been trying for years to have their own child, authorities said Thursday.
Donna Greenwell, 53, a long-haul trucker from Pitkin, is charged with aggravated kidnapping, along with would-be adoptive parents Paul J. Romero, 46, and Brandy Lynn Romero, 27, of Evangeline Parish.
The transaction involving the two children, a 5-year-old boy and a 4-year-old girl, was allegedly negotiated by telephone after Greenwell spotted a flier that was posted on a livestock barn advertising a cockatoo for sale for $1,500 and called the Romeros on Feb. 18.
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