California police find baby kidnapped while grandmother unloaded groceries, detain three suspects
A 3-month-old baby who was kidnapped in San Jose, California Monday as his grandmother was unloading groceries in the family's apartment has been found and police have detained three suspects.
The San Jose Police Department said Tuesday afternoon the infant, Brandon Cuellar, who was found alive, would be taken to a local hospital for an evaluation as a precaution.
The SJPD made that announcement shortly after telling reporters that a woman had been detained as “a person of interest" in the case after what they described as inconsistencies in her statements to police about the kidnapping.
Subsequently, police said three suspects overall were detained but did not disclose whether the woman was among the suspects.
Police released updates on Twitter, where the day before the department posted images of a suspected perpetrator, wearing a black face mask and grey baseball hat. Surveillance video posted by the SJPD showed the man walking down a Northern California street with a car seat that was covered with a white blanket.
During the short time the baby's grandmother was unloading groceries – approximately for two minutes – a man entered the home and took the child, SJPD spokesman Christian Camarillo told reporters. No one else, including the baby's mother who was at work, was home during the kidnapping.
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However, the as-yet-unidentified woman taken into custody was with the grandmother before the infant was abducted MondayCamarillo said Tuesday.
“This was a person who was with the grandmother yesterday when they went shopping, she was present at the apartment complex when this happened,” he said. “There have been some inconsistencies with what she has told us. Obviously, drawing our attention to what she knows about this.”
The baby's grandmother reported the kidnapping, he said. “According to the grandmother, she came home to this apartment.... She took the baby in the apartment, went downstairs to unload some groceries," Camarillo said. "In that short amount of time someone entered the apartment ... and left with the baby.”
The child's father is incarcerated, he said. "I don't know, you know, whether that is going to play into this, but obviously we are going to talk to him soon,” Camarillo said.
He added that the FBI’s Child Abduction Response Team had been aiding in the investigation. SJPD and FBI agents had gone were going door-to-door Monday night searching for information and potential witnesses to locate the infant, who had last been seen wearing a white long-sleeved onesie with dinosaurs printed on it.
Contributing: Mike Snider; The Associated Press.