CROCKETT, Texas (KETK) – Police have arrested a Texas woman who allegedly tried to purchase another woman’s child in a Walmart self-checkout line.
The situation unfolded last week at a Walmart in Crockett, according to The Messenger, a local news outlet.
Police records show Rebecca Lanette Taylor, 49, of Crockett was arrested Jan. 18 and faces a felony charge of the sale or purchase of a child. She was booked at the Houston County Jail and held on a $50,000 bond.
An affidavit of probable cause filed by Lt. Ahleea Price with the Crockett Police Department described a phone call from a concerned mother “advising a white woman with blonde hair approached her in the Crockett Walmart, wanting to purchase her son.”
The mother of the child told Price she was waiting to use the self-checkout. She had a baby in a car seat and her 1-year-old in the cart.
Taylor “began commenting on her son’s blonde hair and blue eyes. She asked how much she could purchase him for. (The mom) tried to laugh this comment off, thinking Taylor was joking. Taylor told her that she had $250,000 in the car and she would pay that much for him. (The mom) told her no amount of money would do,” authorities wrote.
Taylor continued to press the issue, and the mother told her to stay away. Taylor allegedly said she’d been looking forward to buying a baby for some time, according to law enforcement.
The mother later told police that Taylor was with another woman, who asked for the child’s name.
Although the mother didn’t share that information, Taylor and the other woman knew the child’s name and called it out.
The mother waited for the two women to leave the store before heading to her car. In the parking lot, “Taylor began screaming at (the mom), saying if she wouldn’t take $250,000 for him, then she would give her $500,000 because she wanted him and she was going to take him,” according to the affidavit.
The mother locked her children in her car while Taylor stood behind a black SUV that was next to the woman’s vehicle. Taylor allegedly continued to repeat that she wanted the child and offered to buy him. She then got into the black SUV and left.
Police identified Taylor using store surveillance video and questioned the woman at her home.
“She told me that she doesn’t like thieves, then she stated I could speak with her attorney and to get off her ‘precipice.’ She slammed the door shut,” Price said in the affidavit.
If found guilty of a third-degree felony, Taylor could face as many as 10 years in prison.