LINCOLN COUNTY, N.C. — Authorities in North Carolina not only found a woman accused of abducting her 8-month-old granddaughter, but they gave her custody of the infant after they caught her.
Investigators had issued a warrant Monday night for Shelley Lovin Heafner, 62, of Lincoln County, after she refused to return the child to her mother, police said.
Heafner had been babysitting the child since June 6 while Stanley was working, the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release, but when the baby’s mother, Rebecca Lynn Stanley showed up to retrieve the child, Heafner had disappeared.
She is totally going about this the wrong way. Now she's been charged with a felony.
— Lori Thompson (@LoriThompson13) June 12, 2018
Shelley Lovin Heafner, 62, of Buffalo Shoals Road near Lincolnton, didn’t want to surrender the child after... https://t.co/W19U2aaD2M
When Stanley said she was bringing the child's father, who was recently released from jail, with her to pick up her daughter, Heafner refused to return the child and left before deputies or the parents arrived, officials said.
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When Heafner was located Tuesday, an abduction charge against the grandmother was dropped, and a judge issued an emergency custody order.
Details on the order were not available.
Deputies said no other charges are expected.
Cox Media Group
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