Baby-Snatching: When the Longing for a Child Becomes an Obsession

Joan Thompson knew that her boyfriend wanted a baby, but she was infertile and ineligible to adopt. So she obtained a child the only way she thought possible. She took someone else’s.

The abduction was the first of four such crimes committed within 14 months in Maryland and Delaware. They have stunned local communities, frustrated police and demonstrated that hospitals cannot guarantee their patients’ security.

“There have been 12 cases in the United States since 1980,” said Daniel Goldstein, Thompson’s lawyer. “The significance of these cases is that they have almost lock-step similarity, (which) suggests that this is a mental problem, not a criminal problem.”

Psychiatrists said that most stolen babies are taken by emotionally unstable women--not criminals or cult followers--who are strangers to the parents.

Faked Pregnancies

A few women take infants after they have miscarried, but most have been unable to conceive for years. In many cases the women fake pregnancy, then claim to have given birth about a week or 10 days before they abduct a baby wherever they can find one.

“People lose perspective; they don’t imagine how the parents would feel. They shut that out,” said Dr. Robert L. Sadoff, a forensic psychiatrist at the University of Pennsylvania who testified at Thompson’s trial.

Sadoff said that most women in such cases would be deemed sane in court, but their desire for a child crosses into obsession. “They might be helped if they can get into therapy, or talk to someone about it, but these women usually don’t have anyone to talk to,” he said.

There are no statistics on the crime, but child-abuse experts doubt that such abductions are becoming more common. Five baby-snatchings in the New York area in 1985 were considered “copy-cat” crimes, and psychiatrists attributed last year’s mid-Atlantic cases to women mimicking each other.

Crimes Fit Pattern

In each case, local police said the woman simply wanted a child:

- Thompson, 45, from Ellicott City, Md., already had five children and knew that her boyfriend wanted a baby. She had had a hysterectomy in 1978 and failed in 1986 to get a child by private adoption, according to court testimony. Her daughter refused her mother’s request that she steal her a child.

In desperation, Thompson pretended to be pregnant. On Nov. 7, 1986, she dressed as a nurse and walked into Grandview Hospital in Sellersville, Pa. She told Barbara Worthington that her day-old son, Phillip, needed an examination. She took the infant and walked out of the hospital unnoticed. Police tracked her down one week later, on a tip from her daughter.

Thompson was convicted April 15 and sentenced to 18 years in prison. Her daughter collected a $42,000 reward.

“We’re going to tell (Phillip) all about it,” said Barbara Worthington. She and her husband have sold a New York agent the movie and book rights to the story.

Infant in Gym Bag

- Last June 11, Linda Faye Stancil, 34, who had had several miscarriages, went to Prince Georges Hospital Center in Cheverly, Md., to apply for a job. Police said she somehow entered the pediatrics ward and saw 20-day-old Jeremiah Robert Thate alone in a room, where he was being treated for respiratory problems. The baby’s parents, Robert and Theresa, were getting a snack. Stancil allegedly cut an intravenous tube, put the baby in Theresa Thate’s gym bag and walked out.

Four months later, police following tips found Stancil with the baby the an apartment she shared with her mother.

Stancil faces abduction charges. The Thates vowed to sue the hospital for negligence but accepted a settlement instead, their lawyer said.

- Dorothy Jean Brown, 44, of Riesterstown, Md., had a teen-age son but was unable to bear another child after a miscarriage in 1984. Her boyfriend, Anthony Gilmore Jr., wanted a child, so Brown feigned pregnancy and claimed to have given birth in June, police said.

On June 18, she allegedly took 2-day-old Kendol Kernes from a basinet in his mother’s room in Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore. Four months later, police acting on an anonymous tip questioned Brown and asked her to submit to testing. She fled to Philadelphia, where she was caught the next day with the infant.

Baby’s Parents Slain

- Joyce Lynch, 34, of Houston, Del., a mother of two teen-agers who had had a hysterectomy in 1978, surprised her family last summer with the news that she was pregnant. She and her new husband, Richard, bought baby clothes and furniture, then claimed that she had given birth to a boy at home a week before Christmas, police said.

Late on Dec. 23, the Lynches allegedly drove to the rural home of Joseph and Beverly Gibson, shot the couple to death and took their 9-day-old son, Matthew. Investigators two weeks later traced telephone calls to the Gibsons from the Lynch home, and police found Matthew there.

The Lynches face murder and abduction charges.

The three hospitals stepped up security precautions by sealing exits, issuing new staff cards, training staff and counseling patients on safety.

“If the mother doesn’t give the baby to some stranger, and the staff doesn’t (let strangers into the ward), then you don’t have baby kidnapings,” said Russell Colling, an independent hospital security consultant from Denver.

Tough Detective Work

Because police must depend on tips from strangers and neighbors, they are “severely handicapped when it comes to these kinds of cases,” said Bruce Gentile, a Prince Georges County police spokesman.

Investigators routinely trace telephone records and press witnesses for physical descriptions of suspects.