6,835,000 pageviews


Wednesday, October 9, 2019

A Bad Deal: Trading Your Baby In For A Car

     In July 2019, 47-year-old Tina Marie Chavis brought a 2-year-old child (court documents do not reveal the child's gender) to the Wake Forest Baptist Health-High Point Medical Center in High Point, North Carolina, a city located in the Piedmont Triad metropolitan region of the state. Chavis, from nearby Thomasville, North Carolina, said she brought the child to the hospital because she thought the toddler was having an allergic reaction.

     A member of the hospital staff called the Thomasville police when she noticed bruises on the young patient. Questioned by detectives, Tina Chavis identified herself as the child's biological mother, then changed her story by claiming to be the adoptive mother. She could not, however, produce any adoption documents to back up this claim.

     On suspicion that the child had been abused, and perhaps abducted, a child services agency placed the toddler with another family until the matter could be sorted out.

     When detectives learned that Tina Chavis had not adopted the child, they asked her to identify the mother, and to explain exactly how she had come into possession of the toddler. Tina Chavis confessed that she had acquired the baby in 2018. The real mother, 45-year-old Alice Leann Todd, and her husband, 53-year-old Vicenio Mendoza Romero, had given her the child in return for a car. The child's parents also resided in Thomasville, North Carolina.

     On October 4, 2019, a Davidson County Grand Jury indicted Alice Leann Todd, Vicenio Mendoza Romero, and Tina Marie Chavis for the unlawful sale, surrender, or purchase of a minor. The suspects were booked into the Davidson county jail. A magistrate set their bail at $50,000 each.

1 comment: