THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, December 29, 1994 TAG: 9412290377
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ANGELITA PLEMMER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 60 lines
In a crayon-scrawled note, 29-year-old Teena G. O'Sullivan asked for forgiveness - from God and the mother of Michael Young, the 2-day-old baby she took from Sentara Norfolk General Hospital last year.
O'Sullivan's lawyer read the note, addressed ``Dear God,'' to a Circuit Court judge Wednesday during a tense and emotional hearing. Earlier, O'Sullivan had pleaded guilty to abducting the baby from his mother's maternity room on Sept. 3, 1993.
``Dear God, please forgive me for the terrible sin I've committed,'' attorney Andrew Sacks read from the letter that O'Sullivan wrote at the time of her arrest. ``. . . I need your strength and encouragement.''
When Sacks read a passage from the letter asking the baby's mother for forgiveness, the mother, Crystal Young, sprang from a courtroom bench crying, ``No, No, No!'' and ran out of the courtroom.
Judge Lydia C. Taylor asked sheriff's deputies to return Young to the courtroom. She told the crying mother that she would like a victim-impact statement, in writing or in person, detailing how the abduction has affected her life.
``It's clear from your tears and your running out of the courtroom . . . it's had a profound impact on you,'' Taylor said. ``Give me anything and everything you want to say to the court.''
O'Sullivan has never said why she took the baby, but court records show she has a history of emotional problems.
O'Sullivan, an unemployed house-cleaner and mother of two, was sexually abused as a child and was depressed because a recent hysterectomy prevented her from having more children, according to a police and court records.
During the hearing, prosecutors told how O'Sullivan walked into Crystal Young's fourth-floor room about 8:45 a.m. wearing blue operating-room scrubs she had bought at a yard sale.
She told Young that she had to take the baby for tests. A nurse alerted officials when she saw O'Sullivan leaving the hospital with the baby.
Employees confirmed that a baby was missing and contacted hospital security guards and police.
O'Sullivan, who later said she had found the baby in shrubbery outside the hospital, took the infant to her mother's Chesapeake apartment before calling the hospital. Police found the newborn with O'Sullivan about an hour after he was taken.
She faces a maximum of 10 years in prison.
Earlier this year, O'Sullivan pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of attempted kidnapping of a child in Anne Arundel County, Md. She was charged with taking a shopping cart and carrying a 5-month-old baby from a toy store. ILLUSTRATION: Color illustration by Alba Bragoli [sketch]
Teena G. O'Sullivan
KEYWORDS: KIDNAPPING ABDUCTION by CNB