Jul 18, 2008 5:35 pm US/Eastern
Dr: Infant Abductors Show Degrees Of Aggression
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ―
Psychologists say that women who abduct infants show varying degrees of aggression. In most cases the woman just wants the baby and tries to avoid confrontation, but non-hospital or home abductors are more likely to carry a weapon as happened in Armstrong County in October of 2005.
In that case, Peggy Jo Connor who is now serving time, hit a very pregnant Valerie Oskin over the head with a baseball bat, taking her to a remote wooded area and attempted to cut Valerie's unborn baby from her belly. Valerie and her son nearly died.
Police say Connor had told her boyfriend that she was having a baby, and had to produce one.
Psychologist, Dr. Paul Friday, of Shadyside Pyschological Services, has researched what kinds of women are more likely to abduct an infant. He says that the first group are usually, "Women and young girls who have very low intelligence, the second group are those who are schizophrenic, who, in other words are psychotic and delusional in a world that is not real. The third are psychotic deviants, they're the dangerous ones."
Friday says there is also another category. "Those people who are desperate and very insecure to have, let's say, a man in their life - have tried to get pregnant and they couldn't, and they feel if they don't get a child the man is going to leave them."
Dr. Friday says these baby abductions are the exception - not the rule.
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