Babysitter faces kidnapping, cruelty charges after girls found, warrant says
After an urgent search for two young girls ended Monday when police found them safe, their babysitter is facing child cruelty charges for keeping them in an “unclean and unsuitable” tow trailer, the arrest warrant says.
Body-worn camera footage released by Atlanta police shows the dramatic rescue when they found 4-year-old Zola Cooper and her 11-month-old sister Norah Cooper and Lakesha Brown was taken into custody. Police used bolt cutters to get into the locked trailer and opened the door to find Brown hiding amid blankets with the two girls, the video shows.
Their mother, Elica Redding, told the AJC Tuesday that the children are doing well after the kidnapping, but she is upset after the scary ordeal.
“I thought she was someone I could trust,” Redding said. “When I put all the pieces together, I just feel like she intentionally wasn’t gonna bring them back. It was her plan the whole time.”
She said Brown had agreed to bring the children back but stopped responding to messages, then told her they had been in a car wreck, Redding said, which police said they determined was a lie from Brown.
“She was just trying to steer me the other way, so I wouldn’t realize what she was doing,” Redding said.
Brown told police she knew she should have returned the children when their mother asked, but “could not provide a logical reason for not doing so,” the warrant says.
Brown waived her first appearance in court Tuesday and was denied bond, court records show. Her attorney did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
The trailer did not have air conditioning and only had an overhead ventilation system, the warrant says. Detectives noted the outside temperature reached 97 degrees Monday.
“The interior of the trailer was observed to be unclean and unsuitable for human habitation,” the warrant says. “By placing and maintaining the small children in these conditions without proper authority or adequate care, Ms. Lakesha Brown endangered and jeopardized their health, safety, and well-being. The children were deprived of the necessary care and sustenance required for their health and welfare.”
Brown gained the trust of the girls’ mother to babysit them Saturday night, Homicide Unit Commander Lt. Christapher Butler said at a news conference Monday. But when she did not return the children as she indicated she would, their mother reported them missing late Sunday night, launching an all-night search, the AJC previously reported.
Redding told the AJC that her older daughter said Brown did not give her any food but did feed the baby. Brown had the girls Saturday through Monday afternoon when police found them.
“She said, ‘Mommy, it was trash everywhere, and it smelled like pee. We didn’t have nowhere to sleep,’” Redding said.
The girl told her mom that Brown tried to hide when police started knocking on the trailer, but she told police where she was when they opened the trailer, Redding said.
“I told her I was proud of her for being brave like this,” Redding said. “She only 4 years old.”
Brown has a warrant out for her arrest in another kidnapping case in Alabama from five years ago, police said.