4 Attempted Child Kidnapings May Be Linked : Crime: Police officials in Buena Park and Cypress are investigating similar incidents at neighboring strip malls involving a man and a woman who approached shopping mothers who had infants with them.

The same couple who police believe tried to seize two infants at a strip mall in Buena Park this month may have tried to take two other children at a shopping center across the street, police said Friday.

As Buena Park police were investigating an attempted seizure of a 2-month-old baby Thursday, a person across the street, in the city of Cypress, flagged down a police car and reported that she had just seen a suspicious incident involving an infant.

That person, whom police did not identify, told officers that a woman in her 40s with short, curly red hair and an East Coast accent approached a woman shopping at Albertson’s market, near Valley View Street and Ball Road, and asked about her 5-month-old daughter.

The woman “asked the mother how old her daughter was,” Sgt. Ray Peterson said. “This is a common question, so it was answered. The female asked to hold the infant, but was told no. The female still showed an interest in the infant by asking questions about the infant. The female then took the blanket off the infant and touched the infant. The mother replaced the blanket and pushed the cart away from the female.”

Peterson said the red-haired woman then left the store with a portly, balding man in his mid-50s with dark hair.

On Friday, following news accounts of two similar incidents in Buena Park, another Cypress resident reported an earlier incident at the Albertson’s.

Peterson said that in the early evening of Dec. 1, a woman whom he did not identify was shopping at the market with her 3-year-old daughter when a man approached them, “exchanging season’s greetings. The subject then asked about the little girl, saying how cute she was. In the next aisle, the subject attempted to coax the child to come to him. This was upsetting to the child, so they (mother and child) left the aisle.”

The two Cypress incidents were reported to Buena Park police Friday, said Sgt. Bob Mills, the supervisor of the Buena Park unit investigating the incidents in that city.

In the first incident on Dec. 2, Kathy Rapp of Buena Park was leaving a Ralphs grocery store at the mall on the Buena Park side of the intersection when a man approached her and began complimenting her on her 5-month-old daughter’s looks. Rapp was pushing a shopping cart with her baby in the cart’s child seat and her 2-year-old daughter walking beside her.

Rapp told police the man called her 5-month-old “beautiful” and asked her age. Rapp said the man tried to grab the baby from the child seat but she grabbed the baby’s legs and screamed, causing the man to run off.

On Tuesday, a Los Alamitos woman, accompanied by her 2-month-old daughter and 2-year-old son, was approached at about 10:30 a.m. by a woman who complimented her daughter’s looks. Lari Markestein said the stranger was touching the children a lot and then tried to hold the youngest one. When Markestein refused to let her and walked into a store, the woman continued to trail her.

When a store clerk walked up to them, Markestein said, the woman left the store.

Times staff writer Tammerlin Drummond contributed to this report.