Suspect in Newborn Kidnapping Being Held in Separate Cell for Safety Reasons
A Colorado woman has been formally charged with kidnapping a newborn from her half-sister's house in Wisconsin and leaving him outside a gas station in Iowa. Kristen R. Smith, 31, is currently being held in her own cell while she awaits transfer to face the kidnapping charge in Wisconsin.
"I don't feel comfortable putting her in with the general population due to the circumstances and media coverage other inmates would have seen," Sheriff Warren Wethington told Fox News. "Some of the inmates over there are mothers, sisters, nieces and aunts. I don't think it would be in the interest for her safety."
Smith allegedly took the newborn Kayden Powell from his home in Wisconsin and traveled to Iowa. She left him outside a gas station, where an officer later found him after hearing him cry. Thankfully, Kayden was unharmed and reunited with his parents at a nearby Iowa hospital. Smith admitted that she took the infant, and the FBI discovered communications online where she claimed to be pregnant or to have given birth. They also found a prosthetic pregnancy belly in her car.
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She was picked up on an unrelated Texas warrant but held after confessing to the kidnapping. She will be transferred to Wisconsin first because it is a federal kidnapping case. Prosecutors in Wisconsin have already issued an arrest warrant for Smith, which means that she will be taken into federal custody as soon as she crosses the border. They will have to wait at least one week until a grand jury hands down an indictment.
For now, Smith is staying in Iowa, where she will be kept safe until her transfer. She is currently being held on $20,000 cash-only bond on charges of child endangerment in the state of Iowa.
"She endangered the child in numerous ways," Cedar County Attorney Jeffrey Renander told the Associated Press.
"The outside temperatures were below freezing at the time K.P. (Kayden Powell) was located. After K.P. was found, the defendant admitted she had taken K.P. and had placed him behind the BP gas station and also provided law enforcement with a map of where the baby was found," the complaint filed by Renander stated.
