Infant in Abduction, Murder Case Found Unharmed; 2 Suspects Held

FBI agents arrested two people Sunday night and recovered unharmed an 8-day-old girl who was abducted last week by a woman who shot and stabbed the infant’s mother to death.

FBI agents and Jacksonville sheriff deputies arrested Wendy Leigh Zabel, 23, and Robert Henry Ryan, 26, as they arrived with the baby in a car at a Jacksonville apartment complex.

The baby did not appear to be injured, the FBI said, but was taken to a hospital as a precaution.

Kidnap, Murder Charges

Zabel was charged with murder and kidnaping and Ryan was charged with kidnaping. Agents were unsure if the two are married, but said they live together.

The FBI declined to discuss a motive in the case.

The infant’s mother, Joan Witt, 30, died Thursday night from gunshot and stab wounds inflicted during the abduction. Witt’s mother, Marie Barrett, 56, who also was shot and stabbed, remained hospitalized Sunday.

The FBI said a woman came to Witt’s mobile home at 2 p.m. Thursday and asked to use the telephone. The woman said she was pregnant and needed to call her husband because she was having labor pains. Inside, she stabbed and shot Witt and her mother and left with the baby.

FBI agent George Wisnovsky said the break in the case came Saturday, when a gun was found about two miles from the kidnap scene. The gun led agents to a firearms distributor in California, a wholesaler in Minnesota, to Wisconsin, where the gun was sold, and back to Jacksonville Beach.

The apartment in Jacksonville was under surveillance since early Sunday morning, Wisnovsky said.