“THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO BE AT THE HOSPITAL”!!! BELIEVE IT OR NOT, POLICE SAY 42-YEAR-OLD LAKESHA BROWN TOOK TWO YOUNG SISTERS AND CONFINED THEM INSIDE A LOCKED, SWELTERING TRAILER IN 97-DEGREE HEAT… AND SHE NOW FACES MULTIPLE KIDNAPPING AND CHILD CRUELTY CHARGES IN GEORGIA ALONGSIDE AN OUTSTANDING WARRANT IN ALABAMA.
Newly released body camera footage documents the moment Atlanta police breached a locked trailer to rescue two missing young sisters.
Officers used a cinder block and bolt cutters to force their way inside the un-air-conditioned structure.
Inside, they found 4-year-old Zola Cooper and her 11-month-old sister, Norah.
The discovery marked the conclusion of a 40-hour search for the children.
Late Saturday night, around 10:00 p.m., the girls’ mother, Elica Redding, called 911 to report them missing.
Earlier that evening, at 6:00 p.m., Redding had left her daughters with a woman she believed was a friend so she could go out to dinner.
Hours later, the babysitter called Redding and claimed that there had been an “accident.”
The woman stated that she and the children were at a hospital.
But when Redding called every hospital across the area, none of the facilities had any record of the two girls.
Then the babysitter stopped answering her phone entirely.
Investigators used cell phone tracking data and community tips to pinpoint the location of the missing children.
On Monday afternoon, detectives focused their search on an apartment complex.
Atlanta was experiencing 97-degree heat as officers approached a cluttered trailer on the property.
Standing outside the structure, detectives heard what sounded like a baby cooing.
That sound was followed by desperate crying from within the trailer.
“Detective Berhalter proceeded to bang on it a lot louder… Once he had done that, I heard what I knew was the sound of a child crying,” Atlanta Police Department Detective Sherrod Stancil said.
Officers then forced their way through the locked entrance.
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Inside, police found the children living in squalor with 42-year-old Lakesha Brown.
The cluttered trailer had no air conditioning operating inside.
A single box fan was running to fight the extreme heat.
The structure had no restroom facilities.
Police observed a mini-fridge and a television inside the unit.
Those items indicated to investigators that Brown was living in the trailer permanently.
Officers found the 11-month-old infant with a diaper that was completely full.
Both young girls were visibly distressed when police reached them.
And both children were subsequently reunited with their mother in good health.
Officers arrested Brown at the scene.
Authorities charged Brown with two counts of kidnapping.
Brown was also charged with two counts of first-degree child cruelty.
Following the arrest, investigators examined Brown’s prior record.
Police discovered that Brown had an active arrest warrant in Alabama.
That warrant had been issued after she failed to appear in court regarding a separate kidnapping case dating to August 2021.
The August 2021 case involved the kidnapping of a 4-day-old newborn baby.
Brown denied involvement in that previous Alabama case.
Yet authorities noted that she had previously posted photographs of that stolen infant on her own social media accounts.
The charges are allegations and have not been proven in court.
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