Baby snatcher charged

BACOLOD CITY-A woman who snatched an infant at a hospital here last week has been charged with kidnapping at the city prosecutor’s office.

Lilet Letija, 22, of Barangay Villamonte here, was charged with kidnapping on Tuesday for allegedly snatching a baby at the Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital, said city police chief Senior Supt. Ricardo de la Paz. Police arrested Letija at her residence on Saturday and recovered the baby from her custody.

Napoleon Silva, the father of the baby, had told police that Letija, whom he met at the Bacolod Real Estate Development Corp. port in 2005, took his baby while his wife was asleep at the hospital on Friday last week.

De la Paz said Letija appeared to have planned the kidnapping because she bought infant wares, clothes and toys days before she took the baby, whom she presented as her own son to the relatives of her husband.

Letija would be detained at the Bacolod City women’s correctional since kidnapping is a nonbailable offense, De la Paz said.

De la Paz urged both public and private hospitals, not only in the city but also in other areas of Negros Occidental, to tighten security. Carla Gomez, Inquirer Visayas