MELVIN DUCLOS - 3 Weeks - Jacksonville FL

Amber Alert for missing baby boy

Last Update: 1:21 am

Amber Alert: Melvin Duclos

JACKSONVILLE, FL -- An Amber Alert has been issued for a missing baby boy.

According to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, 3-week-old Melvin Duclos was last seen Tuesday in the area of North Ironside Drive in Jacksonville, and is believed to have been abducted by an unknown black female, approximately 2-22 years of age, 5-feet tall, approximately 150 pounds with shoulder length natural black hair
and a silver post in her nose.

She was wearing a blue/gray t-shirt and blue jeans, and may be traveling in a brown 4-door Honda Accord.

The child was wearing a cream colored or light yellow "onesie" with a flower on front and a blue t-shirt.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office at (904) 630-0500, or their local law enforcement agency.

DCF: Baby Kidnapped By Fake Worker

Police Searching Neighborhood On Westside

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Melvin Duclos 3 weeks old, has been kidnapped by someone possibly posing as a Florida Department of Children and Families worker, according to DCF.

Police are searching a neighborhood in the 6200 block of North Ironside Drive on the Westside. The neighborhood has been blocked off.

John Harrell, of DCF, said the department found out from police Tuesday night that the baby had been taken from a home.

"We're obviously very concerned. We're very shaken by this," Harrell said.

"This is something we want to emphasize to the public: This is not how we do things. No one from this agency is ever going to go to a door and take a child."

This story will be updated as more information becomes available.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Melvin Duclos, the one-month-old baby taken
from his parent's arms by a woman posing as a DCF worker, has been
found safe. A suspect has been arrested.
Sheriff John Rutherford said Melvin is being reunited with his family at JSO Headquarters.
Sheriff Rutherford said evidence at the baby's home led investigators to a suspect.
An Amber Alert for Melvin Duclos went out shortly before midnight.
It came a few hours after the family called police to report their
missing baby.
The family said a mystery woman followed them around Shands during a
doctor's appointment Tuesday afternoon. The women even followed the
family home.
Around 4:45 p.m. Tuesday, the family told police a woman knocked on
their door, identified herself as a DCF worker and showed what appeared
to be a badge and official paperwork.
Police say the woman convinced the family to hand the baby over due to an investigation.
The woman grabbed Melvin and drove off in a dark colored Honda Accord.
The family, concerned that the woman hadn't returned, called police around 7 p.m.
A few hours later, JSO issued a missing child alert. The Florida
Department of Law Enforcement upgraded it to an Amber Alert around
11:40 p.m.
Authorities spent the overnight hours gathering evidence at the
family's home on Ironside Drive. Just under 24 hours after Melvin
vanished with the mystery woman, police announced they had a suspect in
for questioning and Melvin back with his family.
The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office is holding a news conference at 10 a.m.

An infant reported missing this morning in Jacksonville has been
found safe, and a suspect is in custody, the Jacksonville Sheriff's
Office said.

The child, 1-month-old Melvin Duclos, was located about 7 a.m. today, a sheriff's office spokeswoman said.

Authorities had issued an Amber Alert for the boy. It has been canceled.

Sheriff's office spokeswoman Melissa Bujeda said the boy was not taken by a family member.

She could not say where the boy was found, but did say a suspect is being held by the sheriff's office.

The parents apparently gave the newborn to a woman posing as a
worker with the Department of Children & Families, the sheriff's
office said.

"She convinced the mother there was an ongoing investigation and at
some point convinced the lady to turn over the baby, purporting herself
to be a DCF worker," said Chief Rick Graham with the sheriff's office.

The woman then got into a brown, four-door Nissan Sentra with the baby, Graham said.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Police have released a previous arrest report for a woman now in custody for the kidnapping of a 1-month-old baby Tuesday.
Jasmine White,
now 19, was arrested in July 2008 in Jacksonville, for grand theft.
Since she was a juvenile at the time, the case record was sealed.
According to the police report, she worked at a Krystal
restaurant in Springfield at the time, and was talking to a customer,
76-year-old Neptune Goggins, about not having a car.
Goggins told police he had a leased a car which he subleased to
White, the report said. White made her initial payment, then stopped
working at the restaurant and never paid him again, Goggins said.
She gave him a fake name, but police tracked her down and found her home with the car parked in the driveway, the report said.
White told police her godfather had given her the car and was paying
for it. She was arrested, then told police she made up the story about
her godfather so her family wouldn't know.
She was charged with grand theft.
Goggins was also arrested. His lease indicated he could be the only driver of the vehicle, and sub-leasing it was illegal.

-- An Amber Alert has been canceled for one-month-old baby Melvin Duclos.Police say he was kidnapped by a woman who claimed to be with the Department of Children and Families.Jacksonville Sheriff John Rutherford now says 19-year-old Jasmine White has been arrested and charged with kidnapping.Investigators
say the baby's mother was leaving a doctor's appointment at a hospital
Tuesday afternoon, when she noticed a woman following her.The woman allegedly followed the mother home, and said she was with DCF -- asking for the baby.A few hours later, the parents contacted the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office to report the baby missing.In a press conference shortly before 7 a.m. Wednesday, Sheriff John Rutherford called the incident a "bona fide kidnapping."Rutherford
says multiple law enforcement agencies used a fingerprint recovered at
the baby's home to track down several possible addresses for White.Early morning, those agencies located White and the baby in a home on Cabot Drive in the Jacksonville area.Duclos and his parents have been reunited, according to Rutherford."I am incredibly proud of the forensics team at the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office," says Rutherford.He also noted that the local hospital where the incident all started was instrumental in recovering the child.Investigators have not released a motive for the kidnapping.

It
turns out the 19 year-old woman who took a baby boy from a westside
couple, pretending to be a DCF worker, was trying to cover up a fake
pregnancy.
Sheriff John Rutherford appeared on television Wednesday night, saying Jasmine White kidnapped 3 week-old Melvin Duclos Tuesday.

Rutherford says White told her mother, who she lives with, that he was a baby girl."She had actually told her mom this was a female baby, it was all dressed in pink". But Rutherford says White's story unraveled quickly."They go to change the diaper, it was a little boy. And she was astounded". White was arrested, and the baby has been returned to his parents.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- "I am so happy," said the mother of a
1-month-old as he was returned to her arms the morning after being
taken by a woman posing as a state welfare worker.
Until this morning, Mariloude Duclos said she thought she had lost her baby forever. "It's a miracle from God."
Melvin Duclos, who was taken Tuesday afternoon by a woman
impersonating a Department of Children and Families worker, spent most
of today sleeping, unaware of his ordeal, but tired nonetheless.
The woman arrested for taking Melvin will be in court at 9 a.m. Thursday.


Jasmine White, 19, of Jacksonville, faces felony charges of
kidnapping, fraudulent use of personal identification information and
interference with custody, according to court papers filed today.
Also according to the arrest docket, White had an outstanding
warrant for fraudulent use of personal identification information,
which carries a bond of $20,000. She is accused of using someone else's
identification to rent apartment under another name. This charge is not
related to the abduction case.
An arrest report related to the abduction said White provided
"several different versions of why she was in custody of the victim"
when police found her.
"The suspect had identified the victim as her daughter (victim is
male) and then advised the victim's parents had asked her to watch the
victim," the report said.
Eventually White, who listed A. Philip Randolph Academy in
Jacksonville as the last school she attended, admitted she took the
baby "under false pretenses," the report said.
Mary Green, a previous neighbor of White's, was shocked to hear of her arrest.
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"I didn't want to believe what I heard," said Green.
She still lives across the street from where the White family stayed
on 49th Street West and remembers the teenager telling her she would be
having a baby.
"She was supposed to be already pregnant. So something had to happen for her to go off the deep end like she did," said Green.
A single fingerprint from a prior arrest led investigators to White and baby Melvin, who was taken from his family Tuesday.
"Without the fingerprint it would have been much more difficult, but
we had an image," Jacksonville Sheriff John Rutherford said at a news
conference this morning. "We knew what she looked like. We did not know
for sure who she was until the print came through, but then the
difficulty was trying to figure out where she was."
White followed the Ducloses home from a doctor's appointment at Shands hospital Tuesday, Rutherford said.
The Ducloses told police they saw a woman following them through the
hospital. White then approached the family at their home on Ironside
Drive on the Westside, showed them fake credentials from the Department of Children and Families, and took the baby, Rutherford said.
Shands spokesman Dan Leveton said White never went into any restricted areas; she was only in public areas.
White threatened to call the police if the family didn't surrender the child, Rutherford said.
A latent fingerprint left at the Duclos home was used by police to identify White, who had one previous arrest for auto theft when she was 17, a juvenile.
With officials from the U.S. Marshal's Office and the FBI, police
found the baby and White this morning at a residence on Cabot Drive
North after several agencies converged on White's last known addresses
in the area.
"They were all in bed," Rutherford said. "The baby was being cared
for and everyone was asleep, I believe, when we knocked on the door."
Referring to the suspect's mother, who was home at the time,
Rutherford said police, "believe she had been told a story" to explain
the baby's presence.
She likely won't be charged in the crime, he said.

The 19-year-old Jacksonville woman charged with kidnapping a 3-week-old baby boy has been denied bail.Jasmine White was at her first appearance Thursday, as were her family members who said she told them she was pregnant.The
baby and White were found Wednesday morning, several hours after an
Amber Alert was issued. The baby was unharmed. White was arrested that
day.


Police said she posed as a child protective
services officer and threatened to call the police on the baby's
Haitian parents if they didn't surrender the child.Authorities
said detectives were led to White because they had captured a
fingerprint on a document she left behind. The print matched one from
an earlier auto theft arrest.

Woman Pleads Guilty To Taking Baby

19-Year-Old To Be Sentenced Next Month

12:23 pm EST November 15, 2010
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Jasmine White pleaded guilty Monday to charges of kidnapping, interfering with child custody and criminal use of personal information for taking a 3-week-old infant from his parents in March.

White, 19, posed as a child welfare worker when she approached the Haitian-born parents at their home. Police said White had followed the family to their house as they left a doctor's appointment at Shands Jacksonville Medical Center.

According to police, White showed the parents a badge and said if they did not turn over the baby, she would call the police.

Melvin Duclos found safe.

After White took the child, the parents themselves called police and an Amber Alert was issued.

The baby, Melvin Duclos, was discovered unharmed early the next morning at White's mother's house.

Police said White had faked a pregnancy and needed to produce a baby to back up her story.

White teared up as she stood before a judge and confirmed that she was changing her plea to guilty.

White will be sentenced for early December.