PAULDING COUNTY, Ga. — A Georgia woman at the center of a kidnapping investigation is facing additional charges, accused of faking her own pregnancy.
Lakesha Brown was arrested on Monday after she was found with two kidnapped children inside a trailer at an Atlanta apartment complex.
Channel 2’s Ashlyn Webb has been digging into Brown’s background and learned that deputies in Paulding County received a tip that Brown had sent a picture of what appeared to be a dead newborn to a man she allegedly told was the child’s father.
The man’s family told deputies Brown had also sent him pictures of a newborn, along with the “baby’s weight and time of birth.”
The man also sent investigators “pictures and videos of Lakesha showing baby clothes and newborn items.”
According to the police report, Brown’s daughter had texted the man, saying, “Her mom had a baby.”
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“He was trying to find out what the status of the child was, because I think he was trying to do the right thing and be a father,” Paulding County Sheriff Ashley Henson said.
Brown eventually let deputies inside her home, telling them to “search the entire house because there was no baby.”
But investigators found something that raised more questions -- an “open package of newborn diapers.” Several of them were missing.
Deputies even searched two burn barrels in the backyard.
“Obviously, they thought, you know, if there was an allegation of a child being killed, they thought that was part of it,” Henson said.
In the end, deputies found no newborn, and investigators say they determined there never was one.
“We actually were able to determine that she used what appeared to be a doll to simulate an actual child,” Henson told Webb. “I think the diapers, the photos, that was part of the scam, I guess, to entice him to provide her money for things throughout the pregnancy.”
In addition to the kidnapping charges in Atlanta, Brown now faces misdemeanor obstruction because she lied and hindered their investigation.
Brown was previously indicted in Alabama in a strikingly similar case involving the kidnapping of a newborn.
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