'My newborn wasn't in her cot when I finished taking a shower'

"Everything was a chaotic blur, and I struggled to breathe, but through it all one horrific thought beat through me: 'My baby was gone’."

Joel Erickson

5 min read

August 27, 2024 - 11:53AM

Family Life

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Elsje had just given birth to her daughter Nadine when she would go through every parent's worst nightmare.

The third-time mum had found out she was pregnant when both her and her husband Conrad were in their 40s, and she said she was “excited” to become a family of five.

"Finding out I was pregnant in 2014, when I was already 40, was a big shock," the New Zealand mum said.

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"I was already mum to Vanja, then 12, and Isabella, six. But along with my husband Conrad, then 43, we were all so excited to become a family of five."

The Sun reports Nadine’s birth was tough, as Elsje needed three epidurals and an emergency caesarean before she was born weighing just under four kilograms.

"The second I held her I fell in love," Elsje said. "But three days later, I was suffering with a stiff neck and terrible headaches. Doctors brought me back to hospital for tests.

"Nadine came with me, so the hospital gave us a private room with our own ensuite bathroom."

Elsje - pictured when she was excitedly waiting for her girl's arrival unaware of the horror that was about to unfold. Picture: The Sun

"I'd only be a few steps away"

Two days later, Elsje was watching her oldest daughter Vanja cuddle her five-day-old sister before visiting hours ended.

"They adored her so much, it filled my heart up with love," she said.

"Once we were alone, I dressed Nadine in a yellow sleepsuit, fed her as she drifted off to sleep and put her carefully in the cot beside my bed.

"Seeing how peaceful she was I thought, ‘I’ll take a quick shower while she’s asleep.’"

Elsje told The Sun she considered wheeling Nadine into the bathroom with her, but told herself “not to be silly”.

"Nadine was perfectly safe, the nurse’s station was right outside and I’d only be a few steps away,” she said.

“If Nadine needed me, I’d be there in a second."

Just a few minutes later, Elsje stepped out of the bathroom and into a nightmare.

“I was surprised to see a nurse standing there,” she said. “‘Was Nadine crying?’ I asked, as we both looked into the cot, but it was empty.

"‘Did you pick her up for me?’ I asked, confusion and panic beginning to rise. ‘No,’ she replied, her face suddenly white, ‘I didn’t’.

"Instantly I couldn’t breathe. It felt as if freezing cold water had been poured over me."

The newborn was still in hospital when she was snatched from the cot beside her mum's bed. Picture: The Sun

"Everything was a chaotic blur"

Elsje’s first response was to drop to the floor to check if Nadine had somehow fallen from her cot, but she soon realised the terrifying truth.

“It hit me like a physical blow,” she told The Sun. “Somebody had taken my baby.

"I flew into the hallway, screaming, ‘do you have my baby? Where is my baby?’

"I heard shouts for security as staff began running to search nearby rooms.

"Everything was a chaotic blur, and I struggled to breathe, but through it all one horrific thought beat through me: 'My baby was gone’."

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Next was the phone call to tell her husband.

"I was shaking so hard it was difficult to hold the phone," she says. "With the nurse’s arm around me I heard myself say, ‘Conrad don’t tell the girls, but Nadine is gone. You need to get here now’.

"Seeing his panicked face, my tears finally came.

"Sobbing in his arms I cried, ‘Why didn’t I take Nadine into the bathroom?’ The guilt and fear almost broke me."

"Conrad couldn’t sit still and kept asking the staff: ‘How could this happen?’ But no one had any answers. All we could do was wait."

Mum and baby back together after the newborn was taken from her cot while mum Elsje took a shower. Picture: The Sun

"He smiled and gave me a thumbs up"

Police eventually arrived and checked CCTV, which showed a “grainy picture of a woman in dark glasses with a baby in her arms”.

The Sun reports police even had an idea of who the woman was.

“They explained that they thought this woman was Loni Marsh,” Elsje said. “She was known to the hospital staff and wanted a child of her own.

“Gazing at the picture my emotions swung from relief that there was some news, to fury.”

Doctors gave the stressed mum something to help her sleep at 2am, six hours after Nadine was taken, but she was woken two hours later by a phone call.

‘I jolted awake and saw Conrad with the phone," she says. "Then I saw him smile and give me the thumbs up sign. ‘They’ve found her,’ he said. ‘She’s fine.’

"I’d never felt relief like it. Exhaustion gone I leapt into Conrad’s arms as we both cried with joy.’"

Faatiga Joe Manutui (left) believed his girlfriend Loni Marsh (right) when she claimed she was in labour, despite a hospital nurse telling the pair she was not pregnant. Picture: The Sun

"My baby was back where she belonged"

Police returned Nadine to her parents 20 minutes later - she was still wearing the yellow jumpsuit her mum had dressed her in eight hours earlier.

"Holding Nadine in my arms again, as Conrad held me, the world felt right again," she says. "My baby was back where she belonged."

The Sun reports Nadine was found at a house 15 minutes away from the Auckland hospital where she was born. She was in fact with Loni Marsh, who was arrested along with her partner, Faatiga Joe Manutui.

Marsh pleaded guilty to kidnapping in November, 2014, and served 18 months in jail, while Manutui pleaded guilty to being a party to a kidnapping in November 2015.

He was sentenced to three months of community detention and 250 hours of community work.

The family now, with Nadine, nine, sitting next to her mum Elsje. Picture: The Sun

"I don't want her to be scared of the world"

Nadine is now nine years old, and while the trauma of that night has certainly faded, Elsje told The Sun it hasn’t completely gone away.

"I stopped my work in accounts to become a childminder, just so I didn’t have to leave Nadine," she says. "Even now if I haven’t seen her for more than ten minutes I panic.

"Conrad and I know that we’ll have to tell Nadine what happened to her when she was just five days old. But when is the right time? I don’t want her to be scared of the world and the people in it."

Until then, Elsje and her husband are focused on enjoying her time with the family when they’re still young.

"Nadine definitely rules the roost and is spoilt rotten by all of us,” she said.

“For the eight hours she was gone my world was over. I give thanks every day that we were reunited."