According to local news reports, a woman in the city of Crockett, Texas, recently attempted to pressure a new mother into selling her baby for $500,000.
The Messenger, which viewed the police report filed on the incident, said that Rebecca Lanette Taylor, 49, approached a woman in the checkout line at the Walmart location in Crockett on January 13 and “began commenting on her son’s blonde hair and blue eyes. She asked how much she could purchase him for,” the report said, with Taylor adding that she had wanted to buy a baby for a long time.
Initially, Taylor offered just $250,000, which she said she had in her car, but after the baby’s mother said her child wasn’t for sale at any price, she began to press the issue.
According to the report, Taylor and an unnamed female friend asked about the baby’s name, but even though the mother refused to tell them, they already seemed to know it.
The incident continued in the parking lot, where Taylor followed the woman to her car and upped the asking price to $500,000.
Taylor began screaming at the mom, saying if “she wouldn’t take $250,000 for him, then she would give her $500,000 because she wanted him and she was going to take him,” the report stated.
The mother put the child in her car and locked the door, waiting until after Taylor left before filing a police report. After taking her report and viewing surveillance footage from the store, Houston County Police officers arrested Taylor on a charge of attempted sale or purchase of a child, a third-degree felony offense, with a bail of $50,000. The maximum penalty she could face is 10 years in prison and a fine of $10,000.
While attempts to buy someone else’s child are rare, there have been several incidents in recent years of people attempting to sell their own children. In one incident in Kentucky in 2019, a woman tried to sell her child to a family member, while in 2008, a Mississippi woman tried to sell her grandchild for $2,000 and a car.