Missouri Day Care Operator Charged With Attempted Kidnapping of Client's Infant

One Missouri day care operator has been charged in federal court after taking a client's infant to Arkansas to arrange for her secret adoption.

Lasonya Poindexter, 30, was arrested Wednesday on charges of attempted kidnapping of the 5-month-old daughter of Ashley and Christian Still. The Stills hired Poindexter in April to care for their two children in her home a few days a week after finding her through a Facebook page.

The affidavit says Poindexter traveled with the baby to Arkansas to meet Laura and Garry Parton, a couple who were looking to adopt a child after suffering a miscarriage, the Associated Press reports. Her plan fell apart in July when the Partons grew suspicious and reached out to the Stills on Facebook. During their conversations, the Stills learned that their day care provider had taken their child to meet the Arkansas couple at least four times and promised they would soon become her parents, and the Partons learned that their would-be child wasn't up for adoption.

Poindexter first contacted the Partons in June and quickly began making arrangements for the adoption. She told the potential parents the baby had been conceived through a rape (which Ashley Still says was a lie), and that she had been given the child to care for. The child care provider also told the Partons that the mother wanted a "closed" adoption so she wouldn't know who had her baby, the affidavit says.

On one of the visits to Arkansas, the Partons say Poindexter asked for money for the girl's care until the adoption was completed. In the meantime, the couple had begun setting up a nursery for the baby and Facebook messages show Poindexter telling Laura Parton she was "glad" the baby "finally has parents who adore [her]."

The families don't know how Poindexter had planned to explain the child's disappearance to her clients.

When the Partons contacted the Stills, they confronted Poindexter, who responded with an email screen shot that appeared to show an attorney's work on the child's adoption papers. She told the Stills that Laura Parton was the girlfriend of an ex-boyfriend who was trying to ruin her child care business.

The families contacted police on July 20, the affidavit shows. Poindexter told police that her 16-year-old sister may have hacked her Facebook account to set up the fake adoption. She later admitted that she didn't have permission to carry the child across state lines and that she had considered giving the Partons another child she cared for.

Poindexter is set to have a detention hearing on Sept. 19 and remains in federal custody pending the hearing.

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