Woman Jailed in Tijuana Baby Theft Released

Bette Winks, the former Illinois grade-school teacher and one-time model parent who was arrested in Mexico and charged with baby-stealing, has been released from jail in Tijuana after being imprisoned there for almost six months, U.S. and Mexican authorities said Thursday.

Joe Paturzo, a special agent with the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service’s anti-smuggling unit in San Diego, said Winks was freed on bond last Friday after being convicted of stealing a child. Winks received a five-year prison term, Paturzo said, but under Mexican law she was allowed to post bond for an unspecified amount and remain free under a kind of probation.

Under terms of her sentence, Paturzo said, Winks cannot leave the Tijuana area without permission from a Mexican judge, to whom she must report each week. Winks is prohibited from leaving Mexico, added the U.S. official, who said he conferred with Mexican authorities on the matter.

Arturo Cardenas, a guard at the Tijuana city jail, confirmed that Winks was released last week, although he could provide no additional details.

Mexican officials could not be reached late Thursday to amplify the accounts of Winks’ release. Winks and her attorney were also not available for comment.

Son Not Informed

John Winks, her 17-year-old son, said, “I haven’t heard anything about it.” He was reached by telephone at the family’s gas station in Bloomington, Ill.

In January, Bette Winks, then 49, and an alleged Mexican accomplice were arrested in Tijuana and charged with stealing a 1-year-old baby girl after their efforts to purchase the child for $3,000 were unsuccessful. Winks could have received up to a 15-year sentence on the charge, authorities said. Both suspects denied the allegations.

Winks’ alleged accomplice, Ivonne Lopez, a Mexican citizen, was also convicted and released from jail last week on terms similar to Winks’ sentence, according to U.S. and Mexican officials. The child was eventually returned to her natural mother.

Although such alleged baby-smuggling cases are not unusual along the U.S.-Mexico border, the singular nature of the Winks case spurred headlines in both Mexico and the United States.

A longtime schoolteacher in central Illinois, Bette Winks and her husband, Charles, were honored as that state’s adoptive parents of the year in 1982 after they adopted two severely handicapped children and brought them to their rural home. The couple, who have eight natural offspring, eventually brought in more than 20 other children, many of them handicapped or poor youths from the streets of Tijuana.

“We just couldn’t turn down a child,” Bette Winks once remarked.

However, authorities challenged the legality of many of the Winkses’ “adoptions.” Eventually, officials took custody of at least 16 children once in the Winkses’ custody, including 12 who were believed to have been born in Mexico. Immigration authorities suspect that some or all of the Mexican-born children may have been brought into the United States illegally. An investigation of that matter and possible violations of U.S. law is continuing, said special agent Paturzo.

“There’s a possibility of her being charged here,” said Paturzo, who would not provide additional details.

Meanwhile, questions linger about the ultimate fate of the 12 children, apparently Mexican-born, who were removed from the Winks household and ultimately placed in foster care in the United States. In an effort to find the natural parents, Mexican authorities have conducted a media campaign, circulating photographs of children who were found in the Winks home. At least two Mexican women whose children may have ended up in the Winks household are seeking their children back, Paturzo said.

Bette Winks has denied any wrongdoing, asserting that the children were legally adopted. Although court papers show that she has turned over thousands of dollars to intermediaries who provided her with at least three children, Winks has asserted that she believed that the money was intended only to pay for legitimate child-care expenses. She has never been charged with a felony in the United States.