Charlotte infant reunited with mother after alleged kidnapping

Lafayette Hawkins heard someone screaming outside her home on Fawnbrook Lane in Charlotte just before 4 p.m. Saturday evening. She ran outside and saw a woman running down the street.

“You hear about this on TV, on Lifetime,” said Hawkins. “She said someone snatched her baby. She had just come back from Baby’s R Us, she parked in the drive, didn’t have time to take the baby out.”

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department detectives were called to the southwest Charlotte neighborhood after the woman dialed 911 saying her 10-month old baby had been kidnapped.

According to police, the mother said the suspect, a woman, approached her in her yard and asked if she could hold her daughter. Police say the mother agreed and handed the child over to the strange woman.

According to neighbors, the mother immediately recognized the suspect from the store she had just returned home from and began questioning the lady.

Police say the suspect immediately ran off with the baby in her arms, jumped into a car, and began to speed away. The child’s mother ran after the car.

“She said she was being dragged from up the street but she couldn’t hold on anymore. That’s when she was calling out ‘help, help’,” said Hawkins.

Hawkins says the entire neighborhood joined together to pray for the mother and for the baby’s safe return. About 20 minutes later, police found the infant and the suspect, Shar-Iornia Reid, 22, in the parking lot of a Walmart on Wilkinson Boulevard.

“I thank God she got her baby back,” said Hawkins.

Reid was transported to Carolinas Medical Center for treatment. Police expect to charge her with child abduction and assault with a deadly weapon.