Carlina White Finds Her Family: What Motivates Baby Snatchers?

Twenty-three years after being stolen from a New York City hospital, Carlina White has rejoined her family.

In August 1987, White's mother, Joy, then 16 years old, took her newborn daughter to the Harlem Hospital emergency room with a fever. She gave the infant to a woman dressed as a nurse, was told Carlina would be fine and went home to rest. When Joy returned, Carlina was gone.

Carlina White grew up in Bridgeport, Conn., as Nejdra Nance. She discovered her true identity when she saw a photo of herself on the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's website. The center helped reunite the young woman with her biological parents.

Though authorities believe the woman dressed as a nurse may have been involved in the kidnapping, an investigation was dropped after no leads were uncovered. New York police say they will reopen the case now that Carlina has been found.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) says there have been 271 recorded instances of infant abduction by non-family members since 1983. Health care facilities are the No. 1 place where these abductions have occurred.

So what drives people to steal babies? Surge Desk explored the literature on abducted infants, and has the following primer.

The NCMEC studied data from 1983 to 2008 to assemble a profile of a "typical" infant abductor. Among the characteristics listed, a baby snatcher:

Is usually female, of "childbearing" age (range now 12 to 53) and often overweight
Is most likely compulsive; most often relies on manipulation, lying and deception
Frequently impersonates a nurse or other allied health care personnel
Frequently indicates she has lost a baby or is incapable of having one

A study in the British Medical Journal supports these theories, noting that some abductors are driven by the desire to manipulate others or a need to compensate for emotional deprivation. In many cases, the study adds, stolen babies are "well cared for."

In two recent high-profile infant abduction cases, the alleged abductors had apparently told people they were pregnant and gone to great lengths to hide the fact that they were not.

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In 2009 Amalia Tabata-Pereira, the wife of Pittsburgh Pirates baseball player Jose Tabata, pleaded guilty to charges of kidnapping after she was accused of stealing an infant from a migrant worker in Florida. Jose Tabata told investigators that his wife had told him she was pregnant and that she had falsified a birth certificate to make it seem as though she had given birth while he was away playing baseball in Venezuela.

And in late 2010 Michelle Marie Goupal, an American model living in Canada, was charged with abduction after allegedly taking an infant from a Toronto studio. Goupal is alleged to have set up a fake casting call for Indian babies, during which she and one of the infants disappeared. Police apprehended Goupal, with the baby, hours later. Goupal, like Tabata-Pereira, had previously told friends she was pregnant.

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