Baby Safe, Taken Home Kidnapped Newborn Fine; Suspect A Mom With 2 Girls

A couple and their newborn boy, found safe 19 hours after being abducted from a hospital by a woman posing as a doctor, went home Sunday after a tearful reunion.

“It’s been a long two days,” said the mother, Melinda Coen.

“We’re just happy Stuart’s home safe with us now,” added the father, John Rembert.

The woman arrested in the case admitted to the crime but police weren’t sure of her motive.

Rembert, 43, and Coen, who turned 31 on Sunday, were reunited Saturday night with 9-pound, 5-ounce Stuart Rembert.

The baby was found Saturday night in a cardboard box near a trash bin behind a convenience store in suburban Lakewood. He was checked at Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital here and kept overnight.

The baby, who was born Thursday at St. Clare Hospital in Lakewood, appeared to suffer no ill effects from his ordeal.

The family left Mary Bridge late Sunday morning, the mother in a wheelchair and cradling the infant, who was sound asleep and wrapped in a blanket.

“It’s been a devastating nightmare but we’re glad it’s all over,” Rembert told reporters.

As for the woman who took the infant, Rembert said: “I just hope that her children will be taken care of and I hope that the good Lord comes out and touches her and helps her through her time.”

Coen said baby Stuart “had a small fever” and his voice was a little hoarse after the ordeal but “checked out fine.”

Kimberly K. Skurzewski, 30, was booked into Pierce County Jail for investigation of first-degree attempted murder and first-degree kidnapping.

The attempted murder count stems “from the fact that she left the child in a box by a Dumpster and the child had no way of taking care of himself,” sheriff’s spokesman Curt Benson said, adding “I’m not sure that the child would have made it a second day.”

Skurzewski was born in Lexington, Ky., and lives on Fort Lewis with her husband, who is out of town on maneuvers, and 8- and 13-year-old daughters, authorities said.

The woman was interviewed by detectives Saturday night and admitted to the crime, but “there were a few inconsistencies” in her story, Benson said. At one point, she told detectives she had recently lost a 7-day-old baby of her own.

“It’s difficult to know for sure whether that’s true or not. She had changed her story several times last night during the interview,” Benson said.