- There’s just so much wrong with this case that we don’t know where to begin.
A mother’s love is priceless. A Texas woman learned that the hard way when she tried to purchase a child at Walmart for half a million dollars.
No, the department store hasn’t started carrying Great Value brand babies. Instead, according to court documents, the woman tried to buy the toddler from another shopper.
Of course, buying — or even attempting to buy — children isn’t exactly legal. So, Rebecca Lanette Taylor, 49, of Crockett, Texas, got arrested for her antics on January 18.
“I can’t believe the crazy lady thought I’d be worth just half a mil.”
‘No Amount of Money Would Do’
The bizarre chain of events is detailed in an affidavit of probably cause, filed at the Crockett Police Department. On January 13, Taylor, along with an unnamed other woman, was at a Crockett Walmart, reported Messenger News.
According to the affidavit, the two women approached a third woman (who remains anonymous) as she waited in the self-checkout line with her children. She had a baby in a car seat while her 1-year-old sat in the cart.
Taylor allegedly approached the woman and “began commenting on her son’s blonde hair and blue eyes.” What could’ve been a nice compliment to a mother quickly took a creepy turn as Taylor asked for much the mother would be willing to sell the boy.
The mother initially thought Taylor was just making some kind of a weird joke and tried to laugh off the offer. But it turned out that Taylor was dead serious.
She told the mother that she had $250,000 in cash in her car. She was ready to give it all to the mother if she allowed Taylor to walk off with her son.
Naturally, the mother declined.
“[She] told her no amount of money would do,” the affidavit read.
What’s in a Name?
Taylor, however, wasn’t about to give up. She kept asking the mother to reconsider, saying that she’d wanted to purchase a baby for a long time.
The bizarre justification did nothing to change the mother’s mind. According to the affidavit, at this point she told Taylor to get away her and her son.
Things got even weirder when the woman accompanying Taylor suddenly asked the mother what her son’s name was. The mother naturally didn’t share the information — but Taylor and her friend still started calling the boy by his name.
Taylor and the other woman hadn’t had any prior contact with the child, as far as the mother was aware. She has no idea how they found out his name.
‘She Was Going to Take Him’
Eventually, the two women stopped pestering the mother and left the store. She waited for a while after they left before walking outside and heading towards her car.
That’s when things got worse.
“Once in the parking lot, Taylor began screaming at [the mother],” the police affidavit reads, “saying if she wouldn’t take $250,000 for him, then she would give her $500,000 because she wanted him and she was going to take him.”
The mother quickly locked her children in her car as Taylor kept yelling at her from behind a black SUV parked next to the mother’s vehicle. Taylor repeated that she wanted to have the boy and would pay half a million for him.
She must’ve eventually realized that she wasn’t going to get the child, because she got into the SUV and left, according to the affidavit. Once the mother felt confident that Taylor wouldn’t be coming back, she called the police.
‘Get Off My Precipice’
According to Lieutenant Ahleea Price from the Crockett Police Department, she was on a patrol when she received the mother’s call. Price headed to the Walmart and asked to see the store’s surveillance footage.
Security cameras had caught the events and, according to the affidavit, confirmed the mother’s account. Price headed over to Taylor’s residence to find out just what her deal was.
“She told me that she doesn’t like thieves, then she stated I could speak with her attorney and to get off her ‘precipice.’ She slammed the door shut,” Price wrote in the affidavit.
The police lieutenant got in touch with Houston Attorney Donna Kaspar and received an arrest warrant for Taylor. On January 18, the cops took Taylor into custody.
The woman has been charged with the sale or purchase of a child. Under Texas Penal Code, that’s a third-degree felony that can get Taylor up to 10 years behind bars, alongside a fine of $10,000.
Taylor is currently held at Houston County Jail on a $50,000 bond.
But if she has $250,000 of cold, hard cash in her car, why is she still in jail? Could she possibly have lied about the money?
Perish the thought.