Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 21, 1995 TAG: 9507210034
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium
``There are two victims here,'' Circuit Judge Lydia Taylor said Wednesday, referring to defendant Teena G. O'Sullivan and the family of the boy who was taken in September 1993. ``... Yet I do believe there are crimes for which society has a right to express outrage, and this is one of those.''
O'Sullivan pleaded guilty in December. She faced a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.
According to authorities, O'Sullivan walked into the fourth-floor room of the baby's mother at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital. She was wearing blue operating-room scrubs she had bought at a yard sale. She told the mother that she had to take the baby for tests.
A nurse alerted officials when she saw O'Sullivan leaving the hospital with the baby. O'Sullivan took the infant to her mother's home in Chesapeake, where she was persuaded to notify authorities.
The baby was recovered about an hour after he was taken.
O'Sullivan, who has two children, never said why she took the baby. But court records suggested she was depressed because a recent operation prevented her from having more children.
Her attorney, Andrew Sacks, said she has a history of child sexual abuse and dysfunctional marriages.
``When she saw the child, maybe he represented to her ... the innocence, the simplicity in life she longed for,'' Sacks said. ``You see a baby sleeping there and you think about how nice it was when things were more simple.''
Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Valerie Bowen called the incident ``any mother's worst nightmare.''
Earlier in 1993, O'Sullivan allegedly tried to snatch a 5-month-old baby from a toy store in Anne Arundel County, Md. She was charged in that case after the mother saw video clips of O'Sullivan's arrest in the Norfolk abduction.
In June 1994, O'Sullivan pleaded guilty in Maryland to a misdemeanor charge of attempted kidnapping and was given a suspended sentence.
by CNB