Parents Take Kidnaped Infant Home

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Jubilant parents Willie and Annette Thomas-Jones loaded their tiny infant into the family car today and headed home on a trip delayed two weeks after a woman posing as a nurse kidnaped the baby boy.

The parents were reunited with their 2-week-old baby, Christopher Michael, after he was found Monday at a woman’s home in Hot Springs, about 50 miles southwest of Little Rock.

He was returned to Doctors Hospital in Little Rock for an overnight stay.

“It was a beautiful night,” Annette Thomas-Jones said today as she left the hospital with the child cradled in her arms.

” . . . We expected God to answer our prayers. He did. We thank him. This is a miracle.”

Police said there is a candidate for the $27,500 reward that had been offered by the hospital and eight other groups or individuals for information on the kidnaping.

Acting on a telephone tip to a police hot line, police found Christopher, born six weeks prematurely Oct. 29, at the residence of Acqunetta Rushon Smith, 32, described as a nurse’s aide, and charged her with kidnaping.

Smith pleaded innocent to the charge today in Little Rock Municipal Court and was ordered held without bond.

“If she took the baby because of a loss in her own life, I hope that she will have the opportunity to get some help,” Annette Thomas-Jones said Monday, minutes after police returned her son. “I forgive her.”

Hot Springs police said Smith, who is single and has five children, had been arrested more than five times, including at least once on a bad-check charge.