Oregon woman says she didn’t try to kidnap baby

ALBANY, Ore. — An Albany woman who police allege tried to kidnap a baby from a hospital maternity ward says she’s innocent and it’s all a misunderstanding.

“Why would I want to take a baby? I have three (children),” Trinity Hanley Louise Hernandez told the Albany Democrat-Herald. “I’ve got 22 nieces and nephews ranging from 3 months to 15. I would just borrow one of them.”

Hernandez, 25, was arrested Tuesday for investigation of second-degree attempted kidnapping and other counts stemming from the Sept. 19 incident, and was taken to the Linn County Jail. The newspaper contacted her about the police investigation before she was arrested.

Police Capt. Eric Carter said that on that day, employees at Samaritan Albany General Hospital called authorities, saying Hernandez was at the hospital and acting strangely. She initially was arrested for investigation of disorderly conduct, but police decided to drop that charge.

Carter said investigators found Hernandez had been spending time at the hospital since fall 2008, often wearing nursing-style scrubs and some kind of identification. On Sept. 19, she came in telling nurses that a friend was in labor with triplets.

“She got all the staff concerned, trying to figure where they’re at, contacting other area hospitals,” Carter said. Hernandez showed hospital workers cell phone pictures of a newborn, saying it was delivered by the side of the road.

As hospital employees scrambled to prepare for a possible emergency birth, Carter said: “They all of a sudden realize Trinity is not around anymore, and they find her upstairs on the baby ward asking about somebody having a baby. That’s when they called us.”

Hospital staff eventually determined there was no record of a woman in labor with triplets.

Hernandez told the Democrat-Herald that someone at the hospital simply overreacted to a conversation she was having with a friend about the friend’s family member having a baby.

She acknowledged she did go to the obstetrics ward to try to see the newborn of a woman she’d known in school, but said she had no intentions of taking the child.

Hernandez also denied trying to pose as a hospital employee. She said she is a licensed certified nursing assistant and wears scrubs to do in-home caregiving, which may have led to a mistaken impression.

Information from: Albany Democrat-Herald, www.dhonline.com