Woman held for trial on kidnapping charges

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Woman held for trial on kidnapping charges

Tuesday, April 04, 2000

By Tom Gibb, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

ALTOONA -- By Kathleen Jefferis' account, the stranger was a chatty sort.

Five days after Christmas, she showed up unannounced at the modest apartment where Jefferis, her boyfriend and their newborn daughter lived, asked about the infant and volunteered that she had a baby of her own. Forty-five minutes later, she was back, bearing baby gifts and inviting Jefferis to join the neighborhood's informal circle of new mothers.

There was no neighborhood circle of new mothers, it turned out. The visitor, Patricia French, 36, wasn't even from the neighborhood. She had no newborn of her own, only a 10-year-old son.

And according to the story Jefferis, 22, told at a preliminary hearing yesterday, the closest thing to a social agenda that French had for her was a twisted plot to kidnap the baby -- luring mother and 25-day-old child to her house, then holding them at gunpoint until Jefferis, toting the baby in an infant carrier, fled screaming to two men outside a neighbor's home.

Six weeks ago, when French, a cleaning service employee, was charged, Altoona Police Detective Roger White suggested that French wanted to snatch the baby and raise it herself. She may have targeted Jefferis after seeing the birth notice in the local newspaper or she may have happened into the convenience store where Jefferis worked when Jefferis came in to show off the child, said Wade Kagarise, Blair County assistant district attorney.

In an hour of testimony yesterday, Jefferis -- sometimes matter-of-factly, sometimes in tears -- offered only more tangles in the story of what she described as a 31/2-hour ordeal.

For instance:

Jefferis said French lured her into her house and then emerged from the kitchen, pointing a handgun and demanding to take photos of the baby. "She said her mom was sick, her baby was in intensive care, and her mom thought the baby was healthy. She wanted pictures of a healthy baby," Jefferis said. But French had no baby, Kagarise said. And when French began snapping photos of Jefferis' infant, she did it with an empty camera, White said.

At another point, Jefferis said, French forced her into the basement and brawled with her -- "kicking, punching, scratching. She bit me," Jefferis said.

But when the baby, safe in its carrier, began crying, French called a timeout, Jefferis said. "She just stopped and said, 'Take care of your baby,' " Jefferis said. "She began wiping down the walls and floor to get rid of all the blood."

At yet another point, Jefferis broke down on the living room couch and started crying. "She came over and gave me a hug. She put her left arm around me," Jefferis testified. "And then she pulled the gun up ... up around my head ... and said, 'Bang!' and started to laugh."

District Justice Kenneth Garman heard enough to send the case to Blair County Common Pleas Court, where it is at least six months from trial. For French, convictions on the full menu of charges -- kidnapping, unlawful restraint, aggravated and simple assault, making terroristic threats and recklessly endangering another person -- could mean up to 22 years in prison, Kagarise said.

During the hearing, French conferred with her lawyer and jotted notes but showed little emotion.

Defense lawyer Thomas Dickey scoffed at Jefferis' account, suggesting that police never found the gun Jefferis said French was packing because French actually was toting a cellular phone.

"I'm not convinced the incident happened the way the victim says it did. My client disagrees with the whole version," Dickey said. Dickey declined to say what French's version of events was.