Drew Perine/The News Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images(PIERCE COUNTY, Wash.) — A chilling 911 call captured a desperate mother’s pleas for help after she alleged she was drugged with a tainted cupcake by a woman posing as a baby photographer in an attempt to snatch the victim’s newborn daughter.
“I’m telling you something is wrong with me. I don’t feel good,” the mom, Elysia Miller, tells a Pierce County, Washington, emergency dispatcher in the 911 call she made this month. “I’m super spacey like it’s hard to talk. And like my hands and my feet, and my arms are super numb. I feel like my breathing is jacked up, too.”
Miller made the call shortly after she kicked Juliette Lelani Parker and Parker’s 16-year-old daughter out of her Tacoma home when police say a photography session with Miller’s newborn daughter took a disturbing twist.
Parker, 38, who last year ran for mayor of Colorado Springs, Colorado, is accused of showing up at the victim’s home with her own teenage daughter earlier this month and drugging the victim with a tainted cupcake.
“I was fine and then I ate a cupcake,” Miller said in the 911 recording released by the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office. “I ate one, I was fine. I ate another one, and then my face started instantly going numb.”
The mother-daughter team abandoned their alleged abduction attempt once Miller became ill and ordered them to leave, according to a probable cause affidavit filed on Tuesday in the bizarre case.
Parker, who also goes by several aliases, was arraigned in Pierce County Superior Court on Tuesday where her attorney entered not guilty pleas to charges of second-degree attempted kidnapping and second-degree assault.
Parker’s daughter was also arrested and charged with the same crimes. She was expected to appear in juvenile court on Wednesday.
Prosecutors said the attempted kidnapping of Miller’s infant occurred on Feb. 5 after Miller answered an ad Parker placed on a mommy group’s Facebook page, offering to take photos of newborn babies for free, saying she was attempting to build a portfolio.
Miller said that after she answered the Facebook post in January, Parker made two visits to her home. On a third visit, Parker arrived with her 16-year-old daughter and offered Miller wine and cupcakes that Parker said she had baked.
She said that once she ate the cupcakes and started to fill violently ill, she noticed Parker wiping down her wineglass and other items in her house in an apparent attempt to erase her fingerprints.
Miller said that after Parker and her daughter left, she noticed her house keys were missing and that she started to vomit uncontrollably.
After making the 911 call, Miller was taken to a hospital, where blood tests were taken and doctors told her she was experiencing symptoms similar to someone exposed to the drug GHB, also known as the date-rape drug, Miller said.
Parker and her daughter, whose name has not been released because she is a juvenile, were initially arrested on Feb. 14. Parker was released after posting $50,000 bail.
On Tuesday, a judge increased her bail to $150,000 and ordered her to be immediately remanded to the custody of the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office after ruling Parker was a threat to children in the community if she remained out on bail. According to online records, Parker remained in Pierce County Jail on Wednesday afternoon.
Parker’s attorney, Ephraim Benjamin, dismissed the prosecution’s case as “a lot of smoke.”
“She is maintaining her innocence and she intends to fight these charges to the best of her ability,” Benjamin said at Tuesday’s hearing.
Miller issued a warning to anyone thinking about hiring a baby photographer via social media.
“Just yesterday I saw someone posting on social media looking for a baby photographer,” Miller said on Tuesday. “Please, if you do that have somebody with you at all times. Check the website reviews. Check to see if they have a business license, ask for references, just be very careful and trust your instincts.”
Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.