Top Stories
Fla. baby missing for 5 days found alive under bed
CHIPLEY, Fla. (AP) — A baby missing for five days was found alive in a box under her baby sitter's bed, and authorities said Thursday they plan to charge the sitter, her husband and the child's mother.
Investigators who searched Susan Elizabeth Baker's home near this rural Panhandle town found 7-month-old Shannon Dedrick tucked under a bed surrounded by items meant to hide her, Washington County Sheriff Bobby Haddock said. The baby, who was taken to a hospital but appeared healthy, was placed in protective custody.
"It was very emotional for us, because once we got her to the hospital, we called our wives and every one of us was crying," Haddock said. "Grown men crying. It's just such a relief. We've had missing children cases in the past, but nothing like this."
Haddock said deputies plan to charge Baker, husband James Arthur Baker, and the child's mother, Chrystina Lynn Mercer.
He would not specify Mercer's role in the disappearance but said authorities do not believe the baby's father, James Russell Dedrick Jr., was involved. Dedrick Jr. and Susan Baker are related.
The baby had been missing since Saturday morning. Her parents said they last saw her when they went to be bed around 3 a.m. and investigators believe she vanished sometime between then and 8 a.m. Her parents did not report her missing until after 11 a.m., but authorities have not explained the discrepancy.
About 100 law enforcement agents and others spent days scouring dense vines and marshes surrounding the baby's home in a remote, makeshift community of dirt roads, tin-roof shacks and old mobile homes.
On Wednesday, investigators contacted the Bakers and asked to search their home, about 12 miles from where Shannon was last seen. They agreed and authorities found the baby there Wednesday night.
"Statistically speaking this should not have ever happened, that we found this child alive, especially after so many days," said Haddock, who cradled Shannon in his arms as he spoke to reporters early Thursday. "Time was against us."
According to court documents, child welfare officials began looking into allegations Shannon was being abused less than two weeks after she was born.
In August, Susan Baker wrote a letter to Gov. Charlie Crist's office, pleading for help for the baby. She claimed Dedrick shook the baby and that he, Mercer and others smoked cigarettes and drugs in front of her. Baker also claimed Dedrick was not the child's father and said he claimed paternity to get welfare benefits.
Investigators frequently went to the infant's home from August to late September and reported that both parents used marijuana and kept a messy home. But they said Shannon seemed to be cared for and in September, a physician determined that she was healthy and expressed "no concerns regarding the baby."
In another twist, Susan Baker was involved in a missing child case in South Carolina more than two decades ago. She told authorities her stepson, 3-year-old Paul Leonard Baker, disappeared from the family's Beaufort, S.C., home on March 5, 1987, while she was napping.
A massive manhunt in the swampy area around the Bakers' home turned up nothing, and she and her husband, James Baker, were extradited to South Carolina in 2000 to be charged in the child's disappearance. Susan Baker was never indicted and authorities could not say what became of the charges against her husband. The child was never found.
Susan Baker did serve prison time after authorities investigating her stepson's disappearance discovered a 6-year-old girl in their home had been badly beaten. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison but the sentence was suspended after 80 days. Authorities could not say how the girl was related to Baker.
- Top Stories
-
-
Calif. boy who called 911 thanks dispatcher
A 7-year-old boy who called 911 from a locked bathroom while armed robbers threatened his parents hugged and high-fived on Wednesday the sheriff's dispatcher who took his call.
-
Democrats, White House close in on health bill
House Democratic leaders on Thursday worked to rally their rank-and-file members around last-minute agreements on insurance taxes and prescription drug coverage that could move President Barack Obama's overhaul of the nation's health care system a step closer to reality.
-
More quakes hit Chile as new president takes over
A series of strong aftershocks from last month's devastating quake rocked Chile on Thursday as a new president was sworn into office and immediately urged coastal residents to move to higher ground in case of a tsunami.
-
New national math, English standards drafted
Math and English instruction in the United States moved a step closer to uniform — and more rigorous — standards today as draft new national guidelines were released.
-
Boyfriend: 'Jihad Jane' suspect wasn't religious
The self-dubbed "Jihad Jane" who thought her blond, all-American profile would help mask her plan to kill a Swedish cartoonist is a rare case of a U.S. woman inciting foreign terrorism and shows the latest evolution of the global threat, authorities say.
-
Probation report cites predatory traits of suspect
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A decade-old probation report on a sex offender accused of murdering California teenager Chelsea King contained a psychiatrist’s conclusion that the defendant had “significant predatory traits” toward underage girls and should be kept in prison for as long as possible.
-
Japan confirms Cold War-era ‘secret’ pacts with U.S.
TOKYO (AP) — Japan confirmed Tuesday secret Cold War-era pacts with Washington that tacitly allowed nuclear warships in Japanese ports in violation of a hallowed postwar principle, effectively acknowledging that previous governments had lied about them for decades.
-
Same-sex couples wed in Washington
WASHINGTON (AP) — One bride wore a black suit, the other had on a white one with rhinestones. They walked down the aisle to Billy Joel’s “Just the Way You Are” and kissed after the pastor pronounced them “legally married.”
-
Teacher backs SUV into Mich. preschool classroom
A teacher trying to park her SUV Tuesday backed through a large window and into a classroom at the suburban Detroit school where she taught, slightly injuring several preschool students, authorities said.
-
2 of oldest people in US die: in NH 114, Mich. 113
Two of the oldest people in the world have died on the same day.
- More Top Stories Headlines
-
Calif. boy who called 911 thanks dispatcher
