Why would someone do this?

[Dar~]

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/03/11/newborn.kidnapped/index.html

I am certain that all of you have seen this news story or heard abotu it. It is much more personal for me, because the girl under arrest for the kidnapping, is my neighbor. We share a back yard, and I have had her in my home.
She told us all that she had just had a baby, and that the baby was sick in the hospital. Supposedly, she had brought her baby home around the beginning of the month. I feel lied to and so so surprised.

 

[oggbashan]

Because the kidnapper has an overwhelming desire to have a baby and usually cannot. It happens again and again.

These people require psychiatric help.

Og

 

[Dar~]

She is only 18 and has kids with her ex. I just don't understand why the lying and plotting. We have been hearing about this baby for months.

 

[oggbashan]

She is only 18 and has kids with her ex. I just don't understand why the lying and plotting. We have been hearing about this baby for months.

Eventually you, and anyone else she has been talking to, would realise that the baby was non-existent. She had to have a real baby to justify her lying.

She probably convinced herself, as well as you, that she had a baby waiting for her in hospital.

Og

 

[Dar~]

Maybe, All I know for certain, is that I had to leave church to go home and talk to FBI guys. I feel like I may have done wrong by my kids having her in my house and I feel so used. I made her offers of help, to cook for her when she got the baby home, and I'm a little disillusioned right now. I feel extremely naive and gullible.

 

[oggbashan]

It is nothing to be ashamed of. You believed her. Why not? She probably believed herself.

If you hadn't heard of similar cases, it isn't surprising that you believed her.

Og

 

[jomar]

Hopefully she'll get help for her mental illness.

ETA: I'm glad the kid's okay and got back to her parents.

 

[SlickTony]

As horrible as it is, this is one of the more benign cases--one hears of women murdering pregnant women and performing quick-and-dirty caesarians on them to obtain the baby.

 

[jomar]

Maybe, All I know for certain, is that I had to leave church to go home and talk to FBI guys. I feel like I may have done wrong by my kids having her in my house and I feel so used. I made her offers of help, to cook for her when she got the baby home, and I'm a little disillusioned right now. I feel extremely naive and gullible.

Why wouldn't you have believed her. I can understand your feeling disillusioned and betrayed, but it sounds like you're being too hard on yourself.

 

[darkerdreamer]

Maybe, All I know for certain, is that I had to leave church to go home and talk to FBI guys. I feel like I may have done wrong by my kids having her in my house and I feel so used. I made her offers of help, to cook for her when she got the baby home, and I'm a little disillusioned right now. I feel extremely naive and gullible.

You can't blame yourself or your parenting skills for sometihng you couldn't possibly have known. It isn't a natural human reaction to question if someone actually had a baby, or kidnapped it. That is why these things hurt communities so much, it makes people realize how little they really know each other.

Something to think about: You and your children are safe, no one can say you did anything wrong for that fact alone.

-2d

 

[Dar~]

Well, I appreciate it. I am glad the baby was found safe, she is absolutely beautiful. I am sure her momma was frantic.