WIS News 10 - Columbia, South Carolina | Missing infant found safe in Summerville

Missing infant found safe in Summerville

NORTH CHARLESTON, SC (WCSC) - A tip led North Charleston and Summerville Police to a Summerville home where one-month old Angel Perez was found just after midnight Wednesday.

The baby was unharmed, said police in a statement. Perez was taken to MUSC for medical checkups and then reunited with his parents.

Police said at a news conference Wednesday that 19-year-old Andrea Walker was arrested and charged with the kidnapping.

North Charleston police spokesman Spencer Pryor says Walker followed the infant's mother for more than two hours before taking the baby after she left it in her vehicle when she went into a North Charleston post office Monday.

Pryor says investigators haven't figured out if Walker knew the family or why she decided to take the baby.

The ordeal for Perez and his mother and father started Monday evening when the boy was snatched out of his mother's car in a North Charleston post office parking lot.

Perez's mother told police she left her son in a running car while she went inside to drop off mail. When she returned, the child was gone, she told police.

Witnesses told police they saw a black woman running from the post office parking lot with a baby in her arms. They described the suspect as a short, stocky black woman wearing a blue and white striped shirt and boots.

By Monday night, police released a description of  the suspect's car, a gray or charcoal Honda Civic with a rear spoiler.

An Amber Alert was issued by the State Law Enforcement Division Monday night and the FBI joined in the search Tuesday morning.

At a press conference Tuesday, police were asking people to be vigilant and take note of people who have a newborn now, but did not before Monday. "There is someone with a child that didn't before yesterday and I think that's important," said North Charleston Police Spokesman Spencer Pryor.

Investigators said the baby's mother left her North Charleston home Monday afternoon and went to a medical clinic. She then went shopping at Walmart and Ross department stores. Police believe the abductor may have been watching the mother. 

"It's always a possibility," Pryor said. "That's why we're hoping that if there's someone who saw them within that two and a half hour time frame, perhaps may have saw someone at this location or someone getting in a car directly behind the victim."

Police said the car from which the baby was abducted had dark, tinted windows, so the baby's presence would not have been immediately noticeable.

The FBI issued a $20,000 reward for the arrest and conviction of the kidnapper.

Walker is charged with kidnapping and is awaiting a bond hearing at the Charleston County jail. A woman who answered the phone at her home refused to comment Wednesday.

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