Woman charged with abducting friend's infant daughter in Portsmouth

FOLLOW-UP: Beach woman pleads guilty to taking baby in Portsmouth (Aug. 22, 2008)

PORTSMOUTH

A mother and infant daughter were reunited Thursday, more than 24 hours after police said the child disappeared with a family friend.

Shortly after an Amber Alert was issued, police said, staff at Norfolk Sentara Leigh Hospital called in. Officers found 5-week-old Matasia Ricks unharmed in the emergency room there, and charged Kimberly Nicole Gardner, 22, with abduction, said Portsmouth Police spokeswoman Ann Hope.

"All kinds of things go through your head" when you realize someone has taken your child, Myeshia Ricks, 20, said Thursday afternoon. From here on out, she said, "I'm going to be with her nonstop."

Ricks said she met Gardner on Nov. 17 through a family member. They became quick friends.

Ricks said Gardner asked on Nov. 20 if she could take Matasia shopping for the holidays. Ricks said no - Matasia was only a week old at the time.

When Gardner asked again in December, Ricks consented. Gardner told her that her grandmother had just died, she had inherited money and was going on a shopping spree with Matasia.

On Wednesday, Gardner picked Matasia up at 7:30 a.m. and was expected back around dinnertime.

"I was talking to her often during the day," said Ricks, who has no car and could not pick her daughter up.

At 5 p.m. Ricks said she told Gardner to bring Matasia home, then tried to reach her again at 6:30 and 8 p.m.

Ricks called the police at 11:30 Wednesday night. Because the child has some health problems, police said, they issued the Amber Alert on Thursday morning. It included what Matasia was wearing - a pink, furry bunny snow suit.

"Once I heard that pink fuzzy thing, I was like, 'Oh my gosh,' my heart started pounding," said Lisa Ahlbrandt, a radiology technologist at Norfolk Sentara Leigh Hospital. Ahlbrandt and Sue Midgett, a radiology assistant, had just ushered a woman and a baby in a fuzzy pink suit into the emergency room.

The woman came into the emergency room about 10:30 a.m. Thursday for care for herself, not the child, a spokesman said.

According to hospital staff, the woman never identified herself as the infant's mother and she appropriately identified herself when she checked in.

At 11 a.m., Midgett and Ahlbrandt, who listen to the radio while working, heard the Amber Alert. After checking what they'd heard against what they were seeing in the emergency room, they approached Gardner, who was waiting to see a physician.

Midgett asked to hold the baby, and Ahlbrandt had staff call police.

Amy Couteé, (757) 222-5216, amy.coutee@pilotonline.com