Woman Posing as Nurse Steals Newborn Girl : Kidnaping: The baby is taken from a Covina apartment while her mother’s attention was diverted. Police are seeking witnesses.

A woman posing as a postpartum hospital nurse snatched a newborn baby girl from a Covina home Wednesday morning while the mother’s back was turned.

Covina police officers were combing the area for the woman and child late Wednesday, while at the same time seeking witnesses to the kidnaping.

The mother, Leslie Kang, 22, was in the kitchen of her apartment in the 1300 block of San Bernardino Road when the woman disappeared with her 8-day-old baby, Sara.

Police said the woman had also visited the Kang apartment Monday. She had identified herself as Susan White and told Kang that she was a nurse sent by Queen of the Valley Hospital in West Covina to check up on Kang and her baby.

“She took our temperatures and blood pressure,” Kang said, sitting on a sofa next to her husband, Paul, 22. “She was very friendly. She helped a lot and answered a lot of my questions.”

The woman, described by Kang as a heavy-set person wearing a light blue or off-white maternity top with “baby” printed vertically across the left side, arrived at the apartment about 10 a.m. Wednesday.

After about 45 minutes, Kang said, the woman told her she was going to try for a job promotion and asked Kang to write a letter of recommendation.

“I sat down (at the kitchen table) to write the letter,” Kang said through tears. “She said she forgot the blood pressure kit and said she was going outside to her car to get it. A minute or two later, I went to check on the baby and she was gone. They were both gone.”

Between 11 and 11:30 a.m., a woman carrying a baby was seen walking north on Lark Ellen Avenue, a short distance from Kang’s apartment, but as of Wednesday afternoon there was no other clues to their whereabouts, Covina Police Sgt. Dennis Murray said.

Composite pictures of the woman have been sent to nurses’ registries in Covina and surrounding cities, Murray said. Lt. Ron McKee said police were also calling local hospitals to see if there were any recent miscarriages or still-born infants. He explained that suspects in some similar cases have turned out to be women who recently suffered such a loss.

Kay Turner, a nursing supervisor at Queen of the Valley, said the hospital contracts with an outside agency to send nurses to the homes of newborns when physicians deem it necessary.

The woman being sought was further described as white, 25 to 35 years old, 5-foot-9 to 5-foot-11, with curly brown shoulder-length hair and “distinctive bangs.” She was wearing turquoise pants and a blue ribbon in her hair.

The five-pound infant is of Filipino ancestry and has black hair. She was in a white jumpsuit and white receiving blanket. She had recently had her ears pierced, with white strings through the holes. Her right ear has two holes.

Paul Kang said he had thought the woman “was someone who could help us. She seemed real nice.”

“I just want our baby back, that’s all,” he said. “We’ll give her anything she wants. I just want the baby back.”