Investigators reunite with girl kidnapped as baby

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A newborn girl kidnapped 10 years ago from a Kansas City area hospital was reunited with some of the FBI agents who helped get her back to her mother.

Carlie Shockey was still a baby when her mother introduced her to investigators before. She didn't understand then who the smiling men in suits were, but knows now about the agents and their lasting role in her young life.

The 10-year-old broke into tears Wednesday during her and her family's visit to the Kansas City FBI office.

"I understand that I was taken from the hospital," she said, cutting her sentence short and lowering her head to cry when asked about her 1998 kidnapping.

Her mother, Trish Shockey, decided to tell her after seeing a newspaper story that mentioned the case and included a photograph of baby Carlie.

"I just wanted her to meet the people who brought her home to us and let her know how special she is," Trish Shockey said.

She said she also remains grateful to those who worked the case and wanted to remind them of that.

"Without them, no telling when or if I would have got her back," she said.

Gone 23 hours

Carlie was taken Jan. 28, 1998, from the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, Kan., while her mother was asleep. The kidnappers, Amanda Tull and boyfriend Buddy Hall, were arrested the next day and later admitted their roles in the child's abduction.

Tull, who was 19 at the time, pleaded guilty to kidnapping and was sentenced to five years and 10 months in prison. Hall was sentenced to two years and three months in prison for being an accessory.

Hall waited in the delivery waiting room of the hospital while Tull took the baby -- who had been born about eight hours earlier -- from her sleeping mother's room.

The kidnappers raised suspicions several times in the nearly 23 hours that passed before their arrests.

A hospital housekeeper overheard Tull boasting that she now had a baby, and security officers just missed the couple leaving the hospital by minutes.

Security cameras recorded Tull and Hall at the medical center, as well as another hospital they had cased earlier that day in North Kansas City, Mo. Television stations aired the videotapes, helping investigators identify the couple.

A Wal-Mart cashier in St. Joseph, Mo., noticed the pair and baby and called in a tip after seeing the couple's video image on the TV news.

Hall and Tull were already on to their next stop: their hometown of Sheridan, Mo.

Tull clipped the baby's hair to try to disguise her. And the next day, the couple stopped at a Sheridan tavern and showed off Carlie as their own. But their behavior was questionable to those diners who knew Tull and sparked another call to authorities.

A relative also tipped off FBI agents, saying the couple were on their way to High Ridge, Mo., where Tull's mother lived.

Agents on the case arrived in High Ridge, south of St. Louis, ahead of the suspects and arrested them. Carlie was unharmed and back with her mother within a day.

"Carlie and her family here are the reason that we do what we do," said Monte Strait, Kansas City FBI special agent in charge.