Police have reunited a 9-year-old girl with her biological mother and arrested a former Harford County woman on charges that she used an elaborate forgery scheme to abduct the girl.
Yesterday, Donna L. Snyder said her daughter, Caitlyn Crowther, is in good health and glad to be home after months of separation. Snyder lashed out at the judicial system, which she believes is responsible for the abduction.
"How can a grandparent have a hard time getting custody of a grandchild, but a complete stranger can get custody of someone's child?" Snyder asked.
Caitlyn Crowther returned home and saw her mother for the first time in nearly a year Wednesday afternoon after police, acting on a tip, found the girl and Maria L. Baughman, 49, in Hampton, Va.
Baughman, a former Abingdon resident, waived an extradition hearing after Harford County sheriff's detectives and FBI agents arrested her in Virginia. She will be formally charged with child stealing, a felony, when she is returned to Maryland in about a week, said Lt. Edward Hopkins, a spokesman for the Harford County sheriff's office.
"We had a tip called in to us recently, and we acted on the tip, and it led us to her," Hopkins, said.
The case involving Caitlyn Crowther began in 1995 when Snyder - then a single mother working two jobs - agreed to let her daughter stay with Baughman at Baughman's home in Middle River. Snyder, now 28, was working long hours during the week but visited Caitlyn every weekend.
Snyder - who does not want her address made public because she fears for her daughter's safety - said she met Baughman through a mutual friend and decided "she seemed like the perfect baby sitter."
At the end of 1996, Baughman went to Baltimore Circuit Court with forged documents and signatures and persuaded Judge Joseph P. McCurdy that Snyder was giving up her custodial rights, police said. Baughman produced two forged documents claiming Caitlyn's mother and father no longer wanted their child, Snyder said.
She said the court never notified her or Caitlyn's father of the custody hearing.
"If you have two parents in the same state that are agreeing to give up custody and this someone goes to a courtroom, why would a judge not want to speak to one of the parents?" Snyder asked yesterday. "Why wouldn't they bring you into the courtroom.
McCurdy was unavailable for comment yesterday. His secretary said he "had no recollection of the case."
