Alarms rang when 4-pound, 13-day-old Zquan Wakefield was smuggled out of the nursery at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, setting in motion the security and police apparatus that was supposed to protect him.
It did not.
The boy’s tiny body was found amid laundry in a hamper in a West Side apartment at 7 a.m. Tuesday, five hours after police picked up two people there for questioning in the case–but without searching the apartment for the missing baby.
The cause of death was asphyxiation, officials later determined.
Exactly when Zquan died was unclear Tuesday. Was it in the first 3 hours after he was abducted, but before the police picked up the woman charged Tuesday with snatching him? Or was it in the five hours after police took the woman and her boyfriend away, leaving nobody else in the apartment where the baby’s body was later found?
The events initiated by what police are describing as a woman’s attempt to produce a child at the end of a sham pregnancy not only created a harrowing personal tragedy for the baby’s family, but also raised questions about security at the hospital and the judgment of the Cook County sheriff’s police.
Loyola officials could not immediately explain how their security system failed to stop the woman, even after the alarms were triggered by a sensor bracelet around the baby’s ankle. Hospital officials also did not explain why they waited for an hour after the alarms rang before they notified police of a possible abduction.
The only reason the Cook County sheriff’s police gave Tuesday for not entering the apartment immediately after they arrived there was that they did not have a search warrant and the woman was being cooperative. A spokeswoman acknowledged, however, that police did not ask if they could search.
“We have to have legal reason,” said Cook County Sheriff Michael Sheahan. “She was just a suspect at that time. When our officers arrived, she was cooperative.”
Police believe 24-year-old Vanecha Cooper, charged late Tuesday with murder and kidnapping, was able to leave the hospital with the infant tucked under a coat she was carrying. After suffering two miscarriages, she had been telling friends that she was pregnant, even saying to one neighbor that she was going to have labor induced this week, according to police and neighbors.
In what appears to be remarkably quick police work, it took just a few hours for Cook County sheriff’s police to scour security surveillance tapes and bring Cooper in for questioning. Also brought in was her boyfriend, who was not charged and is not a suspect, police said.
Yet it wasn’t until five hours after that, at 7 a.m. Tuesday, that police went back and searched Cooper’s residence in the 1600 block of North Lotus Avenue, where they found Zquan’s body.
The family of Zquan on Tuesday was still trying to take in the enormity of their loss–the only time on record in Illinois that an infant abduction has resulted in the death of the baby.
“I don’t know who in their right mind would do something like that,” said June Wakefield, the brother of the infant’s mother, Zandra Wakefield, 21, of Maywood. “Why would someone want her baby–her out of all people? I don’t know who would be jealous enough.”
Zquan was born April 18 and was still in the hospital because of his low birth weight. Relatives said the boy was born prematurely after a seven-month pregnancy.
Family members said Zquan was Wakefield’s only child. “She’s taking it pretty hard,” said Sharon Wakefield, 30, Zandra’s sister.
In many ways, Cooper’s alleged motivations appeared to fit the disturbing pattern set by the other 105 abductions from hospitals recorded by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children since 1983.
Like other women who have kidnapped infants, police said Cooper had told friends and her boyfriend she was pregnant and wanted to have the baby–making Zquan’s death even more surprising.
“It truly does bust the profile,” said John B. Rabun Jr., vice president and chief operating officer of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Loyola officials said Tuesday they were beginning an investigation into the security breach. They would not discuss details of their system, including whether doors were supposed to lock automatically when alarms sound, a feature at some hospitals.
In an interview, Cari Loescher, a nurse who worked at Loyola’s maternity unit until moving to St. Louis in March, said she was disturbed by what she described as disorganized security in the ward and was willing to discuss some of the procedures.
Normally two nurses are on duty in the newborn nursery, she said. Approved guests must be buzzed into the ward’s main entrance by a secretary before being led through two interior doors that are opened with key cards.
After an identification check, guests may be let into the main nursery, Loescher said.
“I’m not surprised someone got in; I’m just surprised they got out with the baby,” Loescher said.
Renovations to the nursery early this year caused glitches in the security system that set off numerous false alarms–as many as five in a single morning, according to Loescher and hospital officials. The problem was fixed in February when the sensors were readjusted and should not have been a factor in Monday’s abduction, said Loyola spokesman Mike Maggio.
When alarms sounded in the ward Monday night, employees immediately did a quick head count of infants in the nursery and realized Zquan was missing, Maggio said. “The alarm system did work,” Maggio said.
Within seconds after the alarm went off, Maggio said, hospital security personnel came to the ward and began a search of the building. After failing to find the boy within an hour, security workers called the sheriff’s office.
Police arrived at the hospital at 11:37 p.m. and began reviewing hospital security videotapes, talking to hospital personnel and examining the list of approved visitors.
The police investigation quickly led to Cooper, who was seen in a security video leaving the hospital with a coat draped over her arm. Officers arrived at her home in the 1600 block of North Lotus Avenue about 2 a.m., Sheahan said, and escorted Cooper and her boyfriend to the sheriff’s police headquarters in Maywood. Cooper also accompanied officers to Loyola University Medical Center at some point, police said.
Sheahan said investigators determined that Cooper was not pregnant, but he did not confirm that she was administered a test of any kind.
Cooper was cooperative and denied any knowledge about the missing baby, Sheahan said.
Still puzzling, however, is why police did not ask permission to search Cooper’s residence at 2 a.m., when they first contacted her.
Sheahan said the officers had no search warrant and no reason to believe the baby was in the house.
Courts have approved warrantless police searches in cases where authorities believe a life is in danger, said Patrick Murphy, Cook County public guardian and an attorney.
“At this point, you’re interested in saving a baby’s life, not in a conviction,” Murphy said, contending that police should have searched the home immediately, even if it meant risking a firm legal case against the suspect. “The worst thing that could happen is that the kid is not there.”
Sally Daly, a spokeswoman for Sheahan, responded: “If our officers believed the baby was in the house they would have obviously done that. It’s second-guessing at this point to criticize that decision. The critics don’t have the same information that our detectives did.
“Our main motivation was finding this baby and finding it quickly. No one wanted to find this baby dead.”
Cooper was charged Tuesday with murder and aggravated kidnapping. Under Illinois law, a murder charge can be applied if a death occurs during the commission of a felony, even if the death was unintentional.
Dorene Alexander, the mother of Cooper’s boyfriend, said her son and the suspect were no longer a couple and were now friends.
Alexander and neighbors said Cooper had told friends she was pregnant and that her due date was April 15.
Siobhan Hays, 20, a neighbor, said she asked Cooper on Sunday about her pregnancy and when she was going to have the baby.
Hays said that Cooper told her doctors were going to induce the labor that day–Sunday, April 30.
