HOUSTON -- A woman who retrieved her stolen baby from a remote Mexican community returned to Houston Thursday, thanking everyone who helped arrange the safe return of the 14-month-old girl.
'We are very happy. We give thanks to all Houston for helping me,' Marina Reyes told reporters shortly after arriving at an airport with her baby, Liliana, in her arms.
Sergio Reyes, a painter who speaks very little English, joined his wife and daughter at the airport.
'He says he can't express any words. He doesn't know how to say it. He's very, very happy,' an interpreter said after asking Reyes for his reaction.
The child was snatched from her crib Oct. 3 by a homeless woman the Reyes had allowed to stay with them. Mrs. Reyes and a Houston detective flew to Mexico City after Mexican police said they had located the missing child.
The girl's father remained in Houston to care for his other children.
Mrs. Reyes was reunited with her child late Wednesday in a federal police station in Puebla, about 125 miles southeast of Mexico City. Mrs. Reyes was driven by Mexican police to Puebla from Mexico City.
'When I see my daughter there were about 12 Mexican officers. I think they cried with me when I received my baby,' Mrs. Reyessaid. 'When I see the little girl maybe she don't want to see me ... but today she smile at everybody.'
Mrs. Reyes said the girl had acted distant at first, as though annoyed that her mother had left her alone for so long.
'The first thing, we give thanks to God for bringing my baby back,' Mrs. Reyes said of her plans to return her family's life to normal. She said she was eager to return home where her relatives, including four other children, waited for them.
Houston detective Jose Selvera said Mexican authorities are searching for the baby's suspected abductor, Aajdee Olivia Gill, 21. She hitchhiked from Houston to her family's home in Puebla, where Gill's mother took control of the Reyes baby and alerted authorities, Selvera said.
Gill disappeared from her family's home later the same day, he said.
Mrs. Reyes said she holds no ill will toward Gill, but believes the woman is sick.
'I beg God to help her. Her mother and I are both mothers. And just as I felt pain for the loss of my daughter, the woman's mother also must feel pain for hers,' Reyes told reporters in Mexico City before returning to Houston.
