In the most bizarre story we’ve read all week, a nanny has been jailed for three years after faking her own pregnancy and then stealing the 11-day-old baby she was supposed to be looking after.
21-year-old Nadene Manukau-Togiavalu wore a pregnancy suit for months and even held a baby shower as part of her elaborate plan to steal a baby.
After convincing friends and family she had given birth, she then claimed the government had forced her to give up her newborn for adoption, News.com.au reports.
But there was no newborn and Manukau-Togiavalu had actually been plotting to steal the child she had been hired to look after.
Enlisting the help of her cousin, Sydnee Shaunna Taulapapa, Manukau-Togiavalu waited for the family to fall asleep, before signalling for Taulapapa to enter the house and steal the baby.
In court, the father said the morning his daughter disappeared “the world fell out from underneath me”.
He recalled Manukau-Togiavalu yelling: “The house has been robbed! The house has been robbed!” before realising “our precious baby was not in her cot”.
He said he knew straight away that Manukau-Togiavalu wasn’t telling the truth.
“Nadene kept saying she had no idea what had happened,” he said.
He called the police and upon reviewing the CCTV footage said: “it was like watching something from a horror movie”.
“I saw a female wearing a balaclava, peering through our back window.
“She exited through the same door carrying bags and the most precious thing in our lives.”
“It was the worst seven hours of my life,” the mother said, according to the New Zealand Herald.
“Many people have called this a parent’s worst nightmare and it was for me.”
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