THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, July 20, 1995 TAG: 9507200380
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JOE JACKSON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Long : 119 lines
In 1993, Teena G. O'Sullivan abducted 2-day-old Michael Young from his mother's maternity room in Sentara Norfolk General Hospital. She kept the baby only an hour before returning him to police.
But her brief act destroyed the bonds of two families. For those families, the anguish continues today, nearly two years later.
The marriage of the baby's parents, Artis and Crystal Young, has disintegrated because of the kidnapping, Artis Young testified Wednesday. The children, including Michael, now live with their father.
Crystal Young has sought counseling, abuses her medication and has talked of suicide. The couple's other children do not go to sleep unless their father locks the doors and shuts the windows at night.
Sometimes the children are so scared, Artis Young said, that at night they ``get up and gather like a pack of wolves on the couch in the living room.''
O'Sullivan's family has paid as well. Her current marriage is on the rocks. Her two children live with their grandmother in Kentucky. Her 12-year-old son has had a bad year: Other children tease him about his mother.
On Wednesday, the last public act in what prosecutor Valerie Bowen called ``any mother's worst nightmare'' came to an end in Circuit Court. Judge Lydia Taylor sentenced O'Sullivan to five years in prison for the September 1993 abduction. When O'Sullivan pleaded guilty to the charge in December, she faced a maximum of 10 years.
Because of a previous sentence for probation violation on presciption fraud charges, O'Sullivan must spend a total of seven years behind bars.
``There are two victims here,'' Taylor said. ``The Youngs and the defendant. . . . It is horrifying for me to hear of the (defendant's) child sexual abuse that in all likelihood led to this.
``Yet I do believe there are crimes for which society has a right to express outrage, and this is one of those,'' Taylor said, adding that no matter what her background, she is responsible for her actions. ``She (O'Sullivan) is a noble creature - she is a human being. She has free will and she has abused it.''
If anything, the abduction was well-planned. Records show that O'Sullivan walked into Crystal Young's fourth-floor hospital 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.
O'Sullivan, who later said she 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 never said why she took the baby, but court records suggested she was depressed because a recent hysterectomy prevented her from having more children. Her attorney, Andrew Sacks, unveiled a history of child sexual abuse and dysfunctional marriages. He said O'Sullivan's reasons for the abduction may run deeper than she can ever know.
``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.''
Life has not been simple for Teena O'Sullivan since she was 5, testimony showed. Her stepfather sexually abused her from ages 5 to 10, when her mother discovered the abuse and called authorities. The abuse stopped temporarily, then began once more when she began to develop as a teenager, the mother, Elizabeth Chadwell, testified Wednesday.
By age 13, O'Sullivan was abusing drugs; by age 16, she married a high school sweetheart. Her husband joined the military and they moved to Germany. By 17, she had her first child.
But there were serious problems. The husband dealt drugs, Chadwell said, giving excess drugs to his young wife. He beat her. ``I saw her beaten and bruised, watched her pulled by the hair,'' Chadwell said. ``Black eyes. Busted mouth. She was young - you don't like to see this happen to your child.''
She divorced her first husband at age 23, and married her current husband soon afterwards, Chadwell said. Once again, the abusive cycle began. There were drugs and alcohol, physical and emotional abuse. She was sent to surgery at least once for a broken nose.
By the time O'Sullivan was arrested for the baby's abduction, she already had a record for prescription fraud. Drug abuse was her way of ``numbing the pain,'' Sacks said.
At this point, the fixation on newborns began. In 1993, before the abduction at Norfolk General, O'Sullivan allegedly tried to kidnap a 5-month-old baby from a toy store in Anne Arundel County, Md. She was charged with that crime after the mother there saw video clips of O'Sullivan's arrest for Michael Young's abduction. On June 13, 1994, she pleaded guilty in Maryland to a misdemeanor charge of attempted kidnapping, but was given a suspended sentence due to the weak nature of the evidence.
Around the same time, O'Sullivan was seen casing the Norfolk hospital. Then, in September 1993, she kidnapped Michael Young.
That's when Teena O'Sullivan transferred the chaos in her life to Michael Young's mother, testimony showed. After the baby was returned, unharmed, Crystal Young became overprotective of her other children. This progressed to feelings of ``helplessness and terror,'' a belief that she could not protect her own children. She became angry and abused prescription drugs. She talked of suicide.
In time, Crystal Young was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress syndrome.
The family's chaos grew. The children were sent to a psychiatrist. Artis Young missed a year and a half of work to care for his children, he testified. The Sally Jesse Raphael Show called, trying to get them and O'Sullivan on a program. Crystal wanted to go; Artis talked her out of it.
Now they are getting divorced. ``Even though you love someone, if it's hurting your kids, you've got to do something,'' Artis Young said sadly. ``I stayed as long as I could.
``I don't believe life will ever be the same,'' he said. ``It's just devastated my life. That's all I got to say.''
Crystal Young sat next to her mother, too distraught to testify, and cried quietly.
A few steps away, Teena O'Sullivan sat next to her attorney and did the same. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
O'Sullivan was sentenced Wednesday.
KEYWORDS: KIDNAPPING SENTARA NORFOLK GENERAL HOSPITAL SENTENCING
BABY
by CNB