SEATTLE-TACOMA, Wash. (CNN/KOMO) — Washington state authorities believe a woman and her teenage daughter drugged a mother and planned to steal her infant.
Investigators say Julie Parker goes by many aliases and used social media to connect with new moms, all so she could kidnap an infant.
Heavily-armed deputies arrested Parker and her 16-year-old daughter at their home outside Graham, Wash.
“Looked in my bedroom and the sniper rifle and guy down there in tactical gear aiming toward this house next door,” said neighbor Harold Swales.
Investigators say Parker posed as a baby photographer working for free to build up her portfolio.
And a single-mom invited her and her teen daughter over.
“Basically she was drugged,” said Pierce County Sheriff’s Det. Ed Troyer. “They put drugs in a cupcake. She ate it and they attempted to take her kid.”
The mom got Parker and her daughter out of the house and ended up going to the hospital.
The mother told detectives she remembered Parker wiping her fingerprints off things she’d touched and had stolen her house keys.
“She wanted a girl and she wanted them five weeks and younger,” said Troyer. “So she could raise it herself, take it out of state and pretend it was a newborn of her own.”
Parker is being held for attempted kidnapping and assault.
Investigators say more charges could be filed.