Four Canadian young adults helped return a newborn baby with her parents just hours after she was kidnapped by a suspect disguised as a nurse, CBC News reported.
Baby Victoria was less than 16-hours-old when she was taken from the maternity ward at Centre hospitalier régional de Trois-Rivières in Quebec on Monday night. The female suspect walked into the hospital room and walked out a few minutes later with Victoria wrapped in a blue blanket, police told CBC News.
"She walked calmly down the hall, wearing a nurse's uniform," a hospital employee told Radio-Canada. "No one asked any questions about who she was."
An amber alert for baby Victoria was issued at around 7 p.m. The alert and the woman's picture were posted on Facebook. Four friends saw the call for help and decided to act.
The group went out looking for the suspect's car, described by police as a red Toyota Yaris, CBC News reported.
"We saw [the alert] on Facebook, and decided to go looking for red cars, and we saw the woman. We recognized her," said 20-year-old Mélizanne Bergeron, who along with Marc-Andre Coté, Charlène Plante and Sharelle Bergeron found the stolen newborn.
Police reunited Victoria with her parents at the hospital, just three hours after she was kidnapped. The 21-year-old suspect is now in custody.
Victoria's mother, Melissa McMahon, said she was thankful to the four who rescued her daughter and to social media for quickly spreading the word about the kidnapper.
"Thousands of people shared the photo of the woman on social networks," the mother wrote on Facebook, CBC News reported. "Know that this is what has saved our little Victoria. Each click, each share made the difference. Four wonderful people, who we had the chance to meet, identified the woman through Facebook."
It is not clear if the woman has any prior connection to McMahon, police said. The suspect is to undergo a psychiatric evaluation.
