Detained Woman’s Mother Admits Child Bought, Report Says Boy’s Birth Traced To Clinic; Police Say Baby’s Passport Legal

An American woman reportedly told police Saturday that her daughter bought a child from an Indian woman and tried to claim the boy as her own, a Mexican newspaper reported.

Laurie Henderson, 36, and her mother, Beverly Gehke, remained in jail Saturday. By law, they must be released today unless charges are filed. The two women are from Madison, Wis., officials said.

Gehke told authorities that her daughter received the child in exchange for hospital and other costs of about $950, the daily Novedades de Cancun reported, quoting a state prosecutor in Cancun.

Gehke said that two friends from a nearby island, Isla Mujeres, had learned of a woman in Yucatan state who, recently widowed, wished to give up the child she was carrying, according to the newspaper report.

Police at the Cancun airport detained Henderson on Thursday when the blond, blue-eyed woman showed them a smudgy birth certificate for the Indian-featured baby she was holding.

Prosecutors said a doctor indicated that Henderson showed no signs of recently having given birth. In brief comments to reporters on Friday, however, she insisted the child was hers.

Police determined that the newborn’s passport, in the name of Hunter Henderson, had been legally issued.

A clinic in Merida, the capital of neighboring Yucatan state, confirmed that a Laurie Henderson had given birth there. But it said the woman was 26 years old - 10 years younger than Henderson.

The child is now in the care of the state children’s agency.

Although few cases have been proven, rumors of child trafficking have stirred up passions throughout Latin America.

In Yucatan, federal police said there were only two reports of children under 2 years old disappearing so far this year.

There have been arrests occasionally in Latin American countries of people attempting to buy children from impoverished parents in order to skirt the delays or red tape of adoption procedures.

Fiercer passions - and less proof - have surrounded rumors that people try to steal children and use them as involuntary organ donors.