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HOSPITAL HORROR
My newborn was snatched from her cot by a stranger who wanted a baby – I only popped to the shower for a minute
What happened to Elsje's daughter is horrifying and every parents worst nightmare
CUDDLING her five-day old daughter Nadine, Elsje Pretorius felt a huge rush of love.
"I couldn’t stop looking at her," says Elsje, 51. "With her huge eyes and dark hair, she was just so beautiful."
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But within hours that peace would be shattered, plunging Elsje and her husband Conrad into every parent’s worst nightmare. Because Nadine was about to be snatched by a stranger.
"Finding out I was pregnant in 2014, when I was already 40, was a big shock," says Elsje.
"I was already mum to Vanja, then 12, and Isabella, six. But along with my husband Conrad, then 43, we were all so excited to become a family of five."
The birth in September 2014 was tough, with Elsje needing three epidurals and an emergency caesarean before Nadine was born weighing 8lb 7oz.
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Love at first sight
"The second I held her I fell in love," Elsje says. "But three days later, I was suffering with a stiff neck and terrible headaches. Doctors brought me back to hospital for tests.
"Nadine came with me, so the hospital gave us a private room with our own ensuite bathroom."
Two days later, and still in hospital waiting for a scan, Elsje watched Vanja and Isabella kiss and cuddle their five-day-old sister goodbye as visiting hours ended.
"They adored her so much, it filled my heart up with love," she says.
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"Once we were alone, I dressed Nadine in a yellow sleepsuit, fed her as she drifted off to sleep and put her carefully in the cot beside my bed.
"Seeing how peaceful she was I thought, ‘I’ll take a quick shower while she’s asleep.’"
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For a second Elsje paused. Should she wheel Nadine into the bathroom with her?
"I told myself not to be silly," she says. "Nadine was perfectly safe, the nurse’s station was right outside and I’d only be a few steps away. If Nadine needed me, I’d be there in a second."
A few minutes later Elsje, refreshed and in clean pyjamas, went back into the bedroom.
"I was surprised to see a nurse standing there and smiled," she says. "‘Was Nadine crying?’ I asked, as we both looked into the cot. It was empty.’
An empty cot...
"‘Did you pick her up for me?’ I asked, confusion and panic beginning to rise. ‘No,’ she replied, her face suddenly white, ‘I didn’t.’
"Instantly I couldn’t breathe. It felt as if freezing cold water had been poured over me."
Elsje dropped to the floor, frantically searching on her hands and knees in case somehow Nadine had fallen out of her cot.
"Then it hit me like a physical blow," she says. "Somebody had taken my baby.
Horror realisation
"I flew into the hallway, screaming, ‘do you have my baby? Where is my baby?’
"I heard shouts for security as staff began running to search nearby rooms.
"Everything was a chaotic blur, and I struggled to breathe, but through it all one horrific thought beat through me: 'My baby was gone.’"
Led back to her bed by a nurse, Elsje, from Hamilton, New Zealand, knew she had to tell Conrad.
Breaking the bad news
"I was shaking so hard it was difficult to hold the phone," she says. "With the nurse’s arm around me I heard myself say, ‘Conrad don’t tell the girls, but Nadine is gone. You need to get here now.’
"Waiting for him to arrive my fear was overwhelming, every part of me ached to hold Nadine. I remember thinking: 'Where was she? Was she safe?’
Minutes felt like hours
"It was like being trapped in a nightmare that I couldn’t wake up from. Every minute felt like an hour and every time I saw the empty cot my heart broke again."
Twenty minutes later Conrad, who’d taken Vanja and Isabella to a relative’s house, ran into the room.
"Seeing his panicked face, my tears finally came," she says. "Sobbing in his arms I cried, ‘Why didn’t I take Nadine into the bathroom?’ The guilt and fear almost broke me."
"Conrad couldn’t sit still and kept asking the staff: ‘How could this happen?’ But no one had any answers. All we could do was wait."
Finally - a grainy image
The police arrived and told Elsje and Conrad they were checking CCTV and 30 minutes later they were back, with an image to show them.
"I looked at the grainy picture, of a woman in dark glasses with a baby in her arms," says Elsje.
"The police explained that they thought this woman was Loni Marsh. That she was known to the hospital staff and wanted a child of her own.
A mixture of emotions
"Gazing at the picture my emotions swung from relief that there was some news, to fury.
"I pictured Nadine hungry, cold and missing me. She only knew my milk, she wouldn’t know what was happening."
Elsje and Conrad could only cling to the police’s words, that they had no reason to think that this woman would harm Nadine.
"Every minute crawled by as we waited for news," Elsje explains. "I replayed the moment I’d walked into the bathroom over and over. Why hadn’t I taken her with me? All I could do was pray.’
Some good news
"At 2am, when Nadine had been missing for six hours, I was exhausted from the fear and adrenaline. That’s when a nurse gave me something to help me sleep."
Two hours later Elsje heard the phone ring.
‘I jolted awake and saw Conrad with the phone," she says. "Then I saw him smile and give me the thumbs up sign. ‘They’ve found her,’ he said. ‘She’s fine.’
"I’d never felt relief like it. Exhaustion gone I leapt into Conrad’s arms as we both cried with joy.’"
The baffling case of the snatched child
Sadly, Nadine isn't the first baby to have been snatched as a newborn.
One of the FBI's most baffling mysteries involved the case of a baby kidnapped by a fake nurse.
Newborn Paul Fronczak was taken from the arms of his mum, Dora, shortly after his birth in 1963 but 'discovered' in a New Jersey shopping centre in 1965.
However, in those days there was no DNA tests, so they relied on whether he looked like them.
Dora and husband Chester raised him, believing he was their boy. But it was subsequently discovered he wasn't their biological son, but they loved him.
It was unclear where their biological son was.
In 2019 their actual son was discovered and it was revealed 'Paul' was in fact neglected child Jack Rosenthal who had a twin who was never discovered.
Reports since suggest the Fronczak's biological son has died of cancer, but got to speak to his biological mother and the kidnapping case remains open.
Twenty minutes later an officer arrived, pushing Nadine in a hospital cot. She was still wearing the yellow sleepsuit Elsje had dressed her in eight hours earlier.
"Holding Nadine in my arms again, as Conrad held me, the world felt right again," she says. "My baby was back where she belonged."
Nadine had been found at a house 15 minutes away, with Loni Marsh, the woman Elsje had seen in the CCTV image. She’d been arrested along with her partner, Faatiga Joe Manutui.
"But the most important thing was that Nadine was unhurt. I couldn’t hug her close enough," says Elsje.
Facing the aftermath
Despite the euphoria of Nadine’s safe return, being back home wasn’t easy for Elsje.
"I didn’t want to let Nadine out of my sight," she says. "I struggled with panic and anxiety.
"My body remained on high alert, constantly vigilant for some unknown danger. I broke down every time I took a shower."
She also struggled with what to tell Vanja and Isabella.
The aftermath and court case
"In the end we said that a poor lady had really wanted a baby and had just borrowed Nadine for the night," Elsje says. "But that now Nadine was back and safe, no one would ever take her again.
"Still, we all had nightmares, despite family therapy."
In November 2014 Marsh pleaded guilty to kidnapping. She was jailed for 18 months.
In November 2015 Manutui pleaded guilty to being a party to kidnapping. He was sentenced to three months community detention and 250 hours community work.
Nadine is now nine and while the trauma of that night has faded for Elsje, it hasn’t gone away entirely.
"I stopped my work in accounts to become a childminder, just so I didn’t have to leave Nadine," she says. "Even now if I haven’t seen her for more than ten minutes I panic.
"Conrad and I know that we’ll have to tell Nadine what happened to her when she was just five days old. But when is the right time? I don’t want her to be scared of the world and the people in it."
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For now, Elsje focuses on enjoying her family, and the cheeky, chatty Nadine at the heart of it.
"She definitely rules the roost and is spoilt rotten by all of us. For the eight hours she was gone my world was over. I give thanks every day that we were reunited."
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