911 caller: ‘I snatched my niece from her;’ stranger tries to take Dayton baby

DAYTON — Three family members walking with a baby on a Dayton street called police Thursday after they were concerned by the odd behavior and comments from a woman who began following them.

What she said was startling, but what she did was much scarier.

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“She’s staring at us all weird, saying she put a curse on my little niece. She’s a baby,” a 911 caller said of the encounter around 4 p.m. near Main and Apple streets, not far from the St. Vincent de Paul Gateway Shelter for Women and Families where the family of four was staying.

Before police arrived, she said she wanted to kill baby in a ritualistic way, according to a Dayton police report.

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Then things suddenly got worse when the woman picked up the child.

“She tried to take my niece, she tried to walk up the street with my niece and I snatched her, I snatched my niece from her,” a family member told 911 dispatchers.

The stranger “offered $350 for the baby” and threatened the baby’s mother, that “if she did not give her the baby she would kill her tonight and take the baby,” according to the report.

Dayton police took the woman into custody, but instead of taking her to jail they took her to Miami Valley Hospital for evaluation.

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