Ailing Baby Stolen From Day-Care Center
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An ailing 14-month-old girl disappeared Thursday afternoon from a Garden Grove day-care center and police launched a “child stealing” investigation, going door-to-door in search of a woman who had been at the facility ostensibly to enroll her own infant.
Witnesses saw the woman leave the building with the child, Victoria Marie Clark, who requires medication for a severe ear infection, Garden Grove Police Investigator Pam French said.
The child was last seen shortly before 3 p.m. asleep in a crib at the Young Horizons day-care center in the 6200 block of Cerulean Avenue, Police Lt. Ken Whitman said. He described the child as about 30-inches tall, weighing 21 pounds, with brownish black hair and brown eyes. She was wearing a lavender terry cloth, two-piece jogging suit with a hooded top and pink tennis shoes and socks.
“She has a very severe ear infection and is in need of medication that was prescribed for her yesterday (Wednesday),” the lieutenant said.
The woman being sought was described as in her 20s, about 5 feet, 6 inches tall, 145 to 150 pounds, with a dark complexion, brown, wavy shoulder-length hair, brown eyes and heavy acne on her face. She was dressed in a white knit suit, with a pullover and long skirt with a light green pattern, Whitman said.
She also had what appeared to be numerous pierce marks on the outer lobe of her right ear and wore three distinctive star-shaped pieces of jewelry with some “little things hanging off them,” the lieutenant said.
The child’s father, engineer Matthew Clark, 29, was at work in Redondo Beach and his accountant wife, Debbie, 30, was at work in Los Angeles, when they learned their daughter was missing.
Debbie Clark made a plea to the woman: “Please return her to us. We love her very much and we’re very concerned about her illness.”
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