MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Four days. That’s how long police say 22-year-old Aerelle Taylor knew a woman before she kidnapped her child Sariah.
Police on Thursday identified Taylor as the woman accused of taking a 10-month-old child Tuesday. They say the child’s mother left her outside in the car with Taylor at a laundromat in Whitehaven.
“When you hear about someone taking a child, your antenna goes up, your adrenaline is because you want to be sure you want to make sure you recover the child safely and you want to reunite him or her with their family,” said Louis Brownlee with Memphis Police.
Detectives say the baby’s mother met Taylor at a store last Friday and spent the next few days with her.
They were at the laundromat Tuesday when Sariah’s mom went inside to dry her clothes.
She told police she left her car running with Taylor and her child in it because the alternator was bad.
She also told police Sariah was recovering from bronchitis and the flu. A relative told us she didn’t want Sariah out in the rainy, cold weather.
When she went back to her car later, she noticed it – along with her daughter — was gone.
Sariah’s mom said Taylor turned off her phone and Facebook account.
Detectives say they obtained surveillance video showing Taylor jumping a curb and driving off. They found out Taylor had been on the phone earlier in the day with her boyfriend, who was asking her to come back to Greenville, Mississippi.
Greenville is where her address is listed, and where she was found hours after the abduction.
Sariah was safe and brought back to Memphis that night.
“It’s just crazy,” said Sheldon Key, owner of a nearby business. “I mean you wouldn’t just leave your kid with somebody you don’t know. That just doesn’t make any sense.”
Taylor is still in custody in Greenville, but is expected to be extradited to Memphis soon to face kidnapping/abduction charges.
