Woman Arrested in Abduction of Newborn : Kidnaping: A tip from relatives of the suspect leads police to Boyle Heights home where the baby is found unharmed.

By TINA DAUNT

May 7, 1994 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Baby Liborio Gonzalez Jr. was back in his mother’s arms Friday, thanks to a late-night 911 tip from relatives of a woman suspected of randomly abducting the infant as he slept at White Memorial Medical Center.

The suspect, Susan Cervantes, 39, of Boyle Heights, who police said took the baby from his mother’s bedside, was arrested without incident on suspicion of kidnaping. Police said Cervantes has daughters of her own but took the infant simply out of desperation to have another baby. She remained in custody Friday.

The infant was returned unharmed to his mother, Guadalupe Gonzalez, 34, at the hospital, less than a mile from Cervantes’ house.

“Words cannot express how scared I’ve been,” Gonzalez said, crying as she clutched the baby after a morning news conference at the Hollenbeck Division police station. “I’m totally happy now.”

Police said Cervantes’ relatives became suspicious after she returned home with the child. She reportedly told some of them that she gave birth to the infant while doing time in Los Angeles County Jail recently on a theft conviction. She told others that the baby was her grandchild, police said.

“There were conflicting statements to family members once she had the baby back at the residence,” said Lt. Mike Felix. “Family members started putting two and two together.”

About 10:30 p.m. Thursday, police said, they received a call from a relative of Cervantes whom they declined to identify, telling them that the baby boy was at Cervantes’ home in the 1100 block of Marietta Street. When they arrived, they found the infant still wrapped in his pink-and-blue hospital blanket, sleeping on Cervantes’ bed.

Felix said Cervantes admitted to police that she took the child at random from the maternity ward of the hospital, in the 1700 block of Cesar E. Chavez Avenue.

“She was candid with us when we interviewed her,” Felix told reporters. “She admitted going to the hospital with the intention to take the baby.”

Felix said the suspect had apparently slipped past the hospital’s security system twice--once on Wednesday evening and once on Thursday morning--by telling staff she was there to visit her sister. Coincidentally, Felix said, a woman in the maternity ward shared Cervantes’ last name.

“Once she got a visitor’s pass, she was in the hospital,” he said.

Felix said police believe that Cervantes intended to take a child on Wednesday, but was frightened away.

Once inside the hospital on Thursday, Cervantes passed though a card-key-controlled doorway to the maternity ward by following an employee. Police believe Gonzalez’s room was an easy target, since the door was open and both mother and child were sleeping inside.

Felix said the woman then strolled out of the hospital, with the infant beneath a blanket positioned over her shoulder.

The baby was then seen being driven away in a gray car, driven by a man believed to be Cervantes’ brother-in-law. Police initially detained the brother-in-law, but released him after detectives became convinced that he did not know what the woman was doing.

Felix said the 911 call ended a 14-hour search. At one point, about 30 Los Angeles police officers were sent to the hospital to interview patients and employees.

“With a little luck and guilty feelings from the suspect’s relatives, it turned out OK,” Felix said.

The child’s father, Liborio Gonzales Sr., 39, an Eastside truck driver who was not in the room at the time of the abduction, said he was thankful the boy was found unharmed.

“I’m well because I have my baby back,” he said. Although he said he did not fault the hospital for the incident, he added: “I don’t know later on how I (will) feel.”

Hospital administrators, meanwhile, said they were upgrading their security procedures to prevent future abductions. Already, additional guards have been added in the maternity ward, hospital spokesman Mark Newmyer said.

“We are reviewing our system and policies to make sure this doesn’t happen again,” Newmyer said. “Our staff has been taking this very, very personally. I think people wish they could have done more. . . . There were tears of joy when the baby was returned.”