A Texas woman was arrested this week after she allegedly tried to buy another woman’s child at a Walmart checkout line. Rebecca Lanette Taylor, 49, is said to have offered the mother up to $500,000 for her infant son “because she wanted him,” The Messenger reports. Thankfully, the child was unharmed and police took Taylor into custody soon after the incident.
- The incident took place at a Walmart Supercenter in Crockett. According to a probable cause affidavit, the mother was waiting in line at the self-checkout line with her two children – an infant in a car seat carrier and a 1-year-old in the shopping cart. As she was about to start scanning, Taylor approached her.
- Taylor immediately began talking about the woman’s son. According to the affidavit, Taylor began “commenting on her son’s blonde hair and blue eyes” before making her offer. “[Taylor] asked how much she could purchase him for. [The mother] tried to laugh this comment off, thinking Taylor was joking. Taylor told her that she had $250,000 in the car and she would pay that much for him. [The mother] told her no amount of money would do,” the affidavit stated.
- The mother told Taylor to get away and leave her and her family alone. However, Taylor persisted in harassing her along with another woman who had accompanied Taylor. According to the mother, Taylor claimed she’d been trying to buy a child for a while. While the mother refused to give Taylor the child’s name, they somehow found out and repeatedly called him.
- Taylor accosted the mother in the parking lot. While the mother said she waited for Taylor and her companion to leave, Taylor then approached her again in the parking lot and reportedly upped her offer to $500,000 to buy her son. “Taylor began screaming at (the mom), saying if she wouldn’t take $250,000 for him, then she would give her $500,000 because she wanted him and she was going to take him.”
- The mother got her kids safely in the car and called the police. Lt. Ahleea Price of the Crocket Police Department responded to the scene and reviewed surveillance footage from the store. She eventually went to Taylor’s home, where Taylor refused to speak to her. “She told me that she doesn’t like thieves, then she stated I could speak with her attorney and to get off her ‘precipice.’ She slammed the door shut,” Price wrote in her report.
- Taylor was arrested on Tuesday. She was charged with one count of participating in the sale or purchase of a child, a third-degree felony in Texas. She was booked into Houston County Jail on $50,000 bond, which she posted on Thursday, KPRC reports.
