Abducted Infant Is Found Unhurt

A month-old infant snatched from her family’s minivan in a Wal-Mart parking lot was found unharmed Wednesday more than 100 miles away, authorities said. A woman was charged with kidnapping.

The recovery of Nancy Crystal Chavez was the “answer to a lot of prayers,” police Sgt. Kim Vickers said.

The infant was reunited Wednesday night with her parents, Margarita and Salvador Chavez, at the Abilene police station about 125 miles from where the girl was found.

“She was content and beautiful,” Sgt. David Watkins said.

Nancy was found in the West Texas town of Quanah when a sheriff stopped a car that matched the description provided by Texas’ first statewide Amber Alert, a media-driven warning system used to track down missing children.

Police said the suspect, Paula Lynn Roach, 24, was being held on a charge of aggravated kidnapping. Police did not offer a motive.

The baby, Roach and Roach’s mother were pulled over in Quanah after authorities received a tip from a nearby nursing home where Roach had gone to show off the baby, police said.

Employees at the home, where Roach’s mother works, said they noticed the baby’s pierced ears and healed navel and decided the baby could not be a day old, as Roach had claimed.

Hardeman County Sheriff Randy Akers, who stopped the vehicle, said he took the baby and asked the women to follow him to the sheriff’s office, where Roach eventually confessed. Roach’s mother was not charged and apparently believed the infant was her granddaughter.

James Duke, warden at the Robertson prison unit in Abilene, told Associated Press that the suspect worked as a corrections officer for about 20 months before resigning in September 2000. Vickers said Roach had lived in Abilene for the last several months and worked at a convenience store.

Police said Margarita Chavez had finished shopping Tuesday afternoon and had placed her three children--Nancy, a 2-year-old and a 6-year-old--in the minivan. She stepped about 10 feet away to return a shopping cart, then saw a woman pulling her infant and car seat into another car.

The frantic mother desperately tried to stop the getaway car and was dragged more than 30 feet in the parking lot, police said.

Margarita Chavez was treated for scratches at an Abilene hospital.

A surveillance video captured the getaway car circling the parking lot in “some type of stalking manner” before the abduction, Vickers said. The video was distributed to television stations, but it was too grainy to show the car’s license plate number.

The abduction prompted Texas’ first statewide Amber Alert, a system used in more than 40 places nationwide to track missing children by transmitting information quickly to television and radio stations.

The program, which was started in the Dallas area, is named for Amber Hagerman, a 9-year-old who was kidnapped and killed in 1996. Her attacker never was found.

Gov. Rick Perry announced the Texas program Monday, and it is being implemented over the next 30 days.

In Nancy’s case, authorities said police departments were notified and the governor’s office sent faxes of news reports about the abduction to other media. Electronic highway signs were programmed to show information on the missing child.