Baby rescued from garbage can
Published: May 23, 2005
Chicago Police are examining whether someone’s desire for a baby was behind the kidnapping of 2-month-old Fernando Torres.
“It’s looking like some people chose to hire someone to take the baby or offered to buy that baby,” a police source told the Chicago Sun-Times.
The child was found unharmed early Sunday, abandoned in a garbage can 1-1/2 miles from the family’s Southwest Side home. Two people were being questioned by police late Sunday.
The infant’s parents, Pedro Fernando Torres, 28, a landscaper from Jalisco, Mexico, who has been in the United States eight years, and his wife of one year, Sonia Godinez, 21, also of Jalisco, “had no idea what’s going on.”
“Some people knew of Pedro and his wife having Fernando, and somebody wanted that baby, didn’t have the guts to do it themselves, and they got some ne’er-do-wells to do it,” according to the source.
Police say two white male Hispanics forced their way into the family home in the 3900 block of West 56th Place Saturday afternoon and ripped the infant from its mother’s arms. Her husband was working at the time.
“One of the people we brought in admitted during interviews, yes, I took part in getting this baby, because Person X and Y wanted the baby,” the source said. “Once it got snatched, it was handed off . . . to another person in another vehicle.” Detectives were also examining whether there was any connection to an attempted baby snatching May 12 in Little Village. In both cases, the target was an infant boy 2 months old or younger, and the intended victims and abductors were Hispanic.
Alerted by dog
Fernando’s parents, speaking in Spanish, expressed their relief and gratitude Sunday outside the family home. “We don’t have enough words to say how happy we are,” Godinez said.
“Thank God they did nothing to him,” added Pedro Fernando Torres.
The bizarre case came to a happy conclusion thanks, in part, to Toto, a tiny German Schnauzer owned by Maria Pacholek.
Pacholek, 54, of the 4700 block of South Archer, has three children in Poland, and shares her spotless apartment with Toto, “a good friend.” She always takes the dog for a walk about 7:30 a.m.
But Sunday is the only day she can remember 5-year-old Toto being insistent about going out early — at 3:45 a.m. Out back of her house, amid garbage cans with signs that say “eliminate rats — close the lid,” she found Fernando. She noticed an open lid on a can and went over to close it.
“I look inside and see baby. I no believe first, baby, and I’m thinking, doll,” said Pacholek, 54, of Rzeszow, Poland.
The infant was still warm, though clad only in a shirt and diaper. “I pick it up, put it on my bed,” she said. “He smile, I’m crying,” Pacholek said. “I think this is dream.” She then alerted police.
Combed the neighborhood
The garbage can was half-full, so the baby wouldn’t have been visible until one looked inside.
“I don’t know how long a 2-month-old can last in the elements like that,” said Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford, who witnessed Sonia Godinez’s tearful reunion with her child. “If [Pacholek] didn’t find him, he could’ve been there all day.”
The police source speculated the kidnappers abandoned the boy because they knew investigators were on their trail. As soon as he was snatched, canine units combed the neighborhood and police did a “grid” search from 55th to 63rd, and from Pulaski to Homan.
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