Kidnaped Baby Found in Church

Three-month-old Rudy Linares Ortega, who was kidnaped Friday by a woman who answered an advertisement by a Van Nuys couple for a live-in sitter, was found safe and apparently unharmed Saturday afternoon in a pew at a Highland Park church, Los Angeles police said.

“He appeared to be well-kept and had a baby bottle and everything,” said Lt. L.A. Durrer of the LAPD Van Nuys division. The baby appeared to have had a change of clothing and was wrapped in a blanket, he said.

“I’m so happy I can’t even say how I feel,” an elated Javier Ortega, the infant’s father, told The Times.

The end to the kidnaping came when police received a call from someone at the Evangelical Formosan Church at 6501 York Blvd. who reported seeing a woman who fit the description of the abductor place the baby on a front pew at about 6:30 p.m. and hurriedly leave, Durrer said. He declined to identify the person who spotted the woman and called police.

“Maybe after we interview her she will consent to have her name used,” Durrer said.

Officers arrived at at the church shortly thereafter and took the baby to the Van Nuys division, which has been leading the investigation of the kidnaping.

Once at the police station, Durrer said the parents, Ortega, 21, and Haydee Linares Medina, 27, both of Van Nuys, were told to come down to the station, but apparently were not told why.

“He looks O.K.,” Ortega said, laughing as he spoke, within an hour after he learned Rudy had been found safe.

Ortega said the police asked him and his wife to come to the police station, “to check some paper work,” he said. Ortega said the police did not at that point tell him his son had been found.

Durrer said the baby appeared to be healthy. However, “as a precautionary measure” the infant and his parents were escorted by police to Valley Presbyterian Hospital for an examination.

The couple, who arrived at the police station shortly before their son did, “broke down in tears of joy and appreciation,” when they saw the infant, Durrer said. “They were saying ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you that our baby was found and that he was safe.’ ”

Police late Saturday were still looking for the suspect, a dark-haired Latina, aged 40 to 45, who identified herself as Rosa Lopez when she showed up Friday morning to answer the ad for a baby-sitter.

The couple said they needed a full-time sitter for Rudy and their other child, Francisco, 2, so that Medina could return to her job as a hotel housekeeper.

Meeting at Apartment

After talking to the couple on the telephone, the woman arranged to meet them at their apartment where the couple live with the two children. They share the apartment with two family friends, police said.

Ortega, who works for a Van Nuys furniture store, said the suspect showed up early Friday for her first day of work.

Ortega said the woman identified a certain region of El Salvador as her former home, but then seemed unfamiliar with some places in that area.

She also asked some “really strange” questions about the health of the boys and whether their vaccinations were up to date, Ortega said. “I guess she already had in her mind that she was taking the smaller one,” he said.

Before the infant was found, two private groups had come to the aid of the distraught couple, agreeing to distribute 15,000 flyers with a picture of the kidnaped baby and a composite sketch of the woman who took him.

Durrer refused to speculate on a motive for the kidnaping, but said the investigation is continuing. “This is very bizarre,” he said. “It’s very unusual until we find out what the motive was or the reason was.”

Times Staffer Alan Goldstein contributed to this article.