By JUAN A. LOZANO Associated Press
The mother of a woman whose newborn son was snatched from her Tuesday as she was shot to death outside a suburban pediatric center said her daughter “died trying to save her baby.”
This undated photo provided by the
Memorial Hermann The Woodlands Hospital via the Montgomery County Sheriffs Office shows a newborn baby boy who was abducted from his screaming mother after she was repeatedly shot outside a suburban Houston pediatric center on Tuesday, April 17, 2012. The infant was wearing a green-and-white one-piece outfit displaying the word “handsome.” (AP Photo/Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office)
The 3-day-old boy was found safe around 8 p.m., about six hours after his mother, Kala Marie Golden, was fatally shot following a verbal altercation in a parking lot, Montgomery County District Attorney Brett Ligon said.
Ligon said the child was “healthy” and that a person of interest had been detained, although no charges had been filed. He would not provide any details about the person.
Golden was leaving a checkup with her son, Keegan, about 2 p.m. at the Northwoods Pediatric Center in Spring, which is about 20 miles north of Houston. In the parking lot, she got into a verbal altercation with a woman in a Lexus parked next to her pickup truck, Montgomery County sheriff’s Lt. Dan Norris said.
Witnesses said the woman repeatedly shot Golden, took the infant and sped away, hitting the dying mother as she screamed, “My baby!” and tried to reach into the Lexus, Norris said.
Witnesses also reported hearing as many as seven gunshots and said a man also was in the sky blue or light green Lexus, which was blood-stained on the driver’s side, Norris said.
Golden’s mother, Linda Golden, told the AP later Tuesday that she had been baby-sitting one of her daughter’s other sons when she was alerted to the incident by someone at the scene who called her using her daughter’s cellphone. She rushed to the clinic but was unable to see her daughter because paramedics were trying to save her.
“I wanted to kiss her before they put her in the ambulance,” Linda Golden said.
Ligon wouldn’t say where the infant was found, but he said it wasn’t at a nearby apartment complex where officers wielding guns and riot shields searched earlier Tuesday evening.
Investigators were processing evidence Tuesday night at one apartment in the complex that was searched, and they took away a vehicle that was parked in front. Photographs taken by news media at the scene show the vehicle was a light-colored Lexus.
Joshua Jesson said he was in the clinic with his girlfriend when he heard gunshots. He said he saw a Lexus next to the pickup truck, then later looked back and saw the car was gone and a woman lying in the spot where the Lexus had been parked.
“I thought she just passed out. Then somebody ran in here and said, `Somebody got shot,'” he said.
Police quickly surrounded the clinic and much of the parking lot with crime-scene tape, and yellow markers were placed next to a purse and pair of brown sandals near a red pickup truck.
Spent ammunition also was nearby.
Authorities late Tuesday were doing background checks on family members with the hope of returning Keegan to them on Wednesday.
Linda Golden described her daughter as sweet-natured and kind. “We went everywhere together and did everything together,” she said.
She said she had no idea what could have sparked the slaying and abduction. “That’s the hardest she’s ever fought,” Linda Golden said. “She died trying to save her baby.”