Sergeant Dermouth Barba (right) of the Seaview Gardens Police Station hands over nine-week-old Kailee Walker to her parents Simone Samuda (left) and Kenar Walker yesterday, three weeks after she was snatched from her home in Denham Town, Kingston by a woman. (Photo: Jermaine Barnaby)

THREE weeks after searching desperately for her baby daughter, Kailee Walker, who was snatched from her home at Denham Town in Kingston, Simone Samuda is now breathing a sigh of relief after the police recovered the baby in New Haven yesterday.

"I get back my baby. I am very happy and overjoyed," Samuda told the Observer as she cl**tched little Kailee, now nine weeks old, in her arms. "I won't get to carry her home tonight because she have to do DNA test tomorrow (today)."

Sergeant Dermouth Barba of the Seaview Gardens Police Station told the Observer that Kailee was recovered at a church in the Kingston community last night after the woman accused of snatching the baby fled her home in Seaview Gardens, with Kailee, when she was confronted by Samuda earlier in the day. However, no arrest was made.

"She knows the pastor because her baby's father lives in New Haven so she went there and left the baby. The news reached the pastor that the baby was stolen so he called the father and the father called the police and we went and got the baby," Barba said. "The baby is going to be transferred to the Denham Town Police and then Bustamante Children's Hospital where she will be examined," added the policeman.

Earlier yesterday Samuda came close to getting back her daughter after she and a friend confronted the alleged baby snatcher at her home minutes after 2:00 pm.
"Me get a call seh the baby deh down here and me come and me see the girl mother and me tell her fi call her. When she come out she did have me baby in her hand and me seh a you ask mi fi the (drink of) water, give me mi baby," an obviously distraught Samuda told the Observer yesterday.

In December, Samuda said the woman had entered her house for a drink of water and offered to hold Kailee while she made the baby's formula. Samuda said she was distracted for a few minutes and when she turned around the woman was gone with Kailee.

Yesterday's confrontation was too much for Samuda and she fainted during the heated argument, while the accused baby abductor ran off with the child.

"Mi friend did hold on to the baby, but she hold to the baby tight, tight so when she run off she couldn't grab the baby from the woman," she said. "Me not even see which part she run go."

Samuda said the woman's mother who was at the house at the time, promised to go and buy credit for her cellphone to call her daughter, but never returned to the premises, located just metres away from the Seaview Gardens Police Station.

A large group of residents who had gathered at the scene said they were shocked that the woman accused as a "baby thief" had been right 'under their nose'.

"Me shame because all along me did think a fi her baby that," one woman said.

The resident also claimed that the woman had lost her baby recently, but pretended that the baby was still at the hospital receiving medical care.

"Mi hear she nuh tell the baby father seh the baby dead. She used to get up a morning time and wash the baby clothes and mek like seh she a go a di hospital," another resident claimed. Another alleged that the woman had christened the baby last Sunday.