Mom warns others after her newborn was allegedly nearly kidnapped at a local Target store: 'It can happen to anyone'
A Kansas mom took her 10-week-old daughter with her when she went shopping at a local Target on Friday morning. But she immediately regretted it once she ran into an unexpected situation — a possible attempted kidnapping.
Rachel Youngs went to the superstore in Shawnee, Kan., to go grocery shopping and ran into a woman in the baby section she later learned was named Engy Kerr. The situation at first didn’t seem odd, as Kerr was browsing with an adorable dog in hand. However, when Youngs complimented the woman’s pet, the conversation quickly became uncomfortable as Kerr began to share her story about being adopted and quickly offered information to Youngs about how she wants to raise children herself.
“She asked if I wanted to hold her dog, and I told her yes, so she handed me her dog. As I held her dog, she went back to the front of the cart and started taking my daughter out of the car seat,” Youngs says to Yahoo Lifestyle. “While holding my daughter, she told me, ‘Just so you know, I was arrested for attempted kidnapping. They thought I was trying to steal a baby from a church nursery. But I didn’t do it; they are just racist, and I’m suing the police because they didn’t read me my Miranda rights.’ My heart immediately sank, and I was super nervous at that point and didn’t know what to do because I didn’t know what she was capable of.”
The conversation took another turn as Kerr asked Youngs more information about her family and if the baby had a godmother. Luckily, a Target employee showed up to offer Kerr a cart and stuck around when Youngs made it clear that she was nervous.
“At this point, [Kerr] started putting random baby girl clothing in her cart, and the Target employee gets closer to me, so I told her, ‘Please don’t walk away, please stay here. I think she’s up to something,'” Youngs says. “She said, ‘Don’t worry, we are watching her on cameras. She won’t leave my sight.'”
Kerr, however, attempted to leave Youngs’s sight with baby Waverly still in hand, which is when the mother sprung into action and asked for her baby back.
With some hesitation, Kerr eventually handed Waverly back to her mom. Youngs then quickly went to the checkout area to ask that someone walk her and her child out to the car, while another employee called the police. Youngs went for a drive around the block before returning for questioning.
The Shawnee Police Department sent the following statement to Yahoo Lifestyle about the incident: “We responded to a trespassing call, and our officers were approached by someone who stated someone attempted to kidnap her child. After investigating the situation, we learned no crime had occurred. We have continued to investigate this as suspicious activity.“
Youngs told Yahoo Lifestyle that officers told her they couldn’t do much because she allowed Kerr to hold the baby in the first place. Although Youngs says that she has come in contact with other mothers who have experienced similar situations with Kerr since the mother’s story aired on local Kansas City news station WDAF-TV Friday night.
“The following morning at 5:30 a.m., I received a message from a woman I didn’t know. She said she believes the same woman confronted her at Cabela’s in Kansas City Kansas that same night,” Youngs says. “We confirmed that it was Engy that she came into contact with. Engy had a cart with 2 guns, knives, ammo, a bow, arrows, etc. she approached this woman the same way she approached me. Later that same night I received a message from a woman in Sabetha, Kansas, saying that Engy did the same thing to her that day.”
Now Youngs is taking it upon herself to warn others about the potential harm in trusting strangers with their children and reassuring people that they can say no.
“I realized that this kind of thing is so much more common than we realize. That it can happen to anyone,” she says. “There are many good people in the world but so many bad people as well, and unfortunately it’s not always clear about who has good intentions and who has bad intentions.”
Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:
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• Daycare ‘fight club’ caught on camera — and now this mom is suing
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