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Mom Claiming She Was Drugged With Cupcake In Alleged Kidnapping Plot Now Sleeps With Knife
Juliette Parker is accused of posing as a baby photographer in order to steal someone else's infant.
The Washington mother who claims she was fed a poisoned cupcake in an alleged kidnapping scheme is living in fear following the peculiar ordeal.
Elysia Miller came forward in a press conference this week, claiming she hired alleged photographer Juliette Parker to snap pictures of her newborn after meeting the woman on Facebook. However, detectives believe Parker, a non-profit worker and former Colorado Springs mayoral candidate, was only posing as a photographer in an attempt to gain Miller’s trust, and had ultimately planned to kidnap the woman’s infant.
"Since this happened, I am terrified to be at my house,” Miller said at a press conference this week, ABC News reported. “I don't go anywhere. I don't like being at home. I'm not sleeping. I'm not eating.”
On Feb. 5, Parker and her teenage daughter allegedly drugged the woman using a cupcake while at her home, authorities said. Miller ordered them to leave after she felt sick, but told police she believes they swiped her house keys while there.
Since allegedly being fed the contaminated desert, Miller said she’s petrified and has armed herself with an arsenal of weapons around the clock. She even claimed to be slumbering with a knife in arm’s reach.
“I carry a machete, a knife and pepper spray at my house and in my car,” Miller added. “I sleep with a knife under my pillow as a result of this.”
Parker was booked on Feb. 14. She was charged with second-degree attempted kidnapping and second-degree assault. The woman’s father posted her bond, ABC News reported. The 38-year-old, who has since been released, has pleaded not guilty in the suspected abduction attempt.
Miller watched the short preliminary hearing alongside case investigators from a viewing gallery in the courtroom. Parker's release ahead of her trial has further traumatized the Washington mother. Seeing Parker in court was “scary,” she said, according to ABC.
"I'm terrified she's going to get back out," Miller said, ABC News reported. "This is my kids. This is my house. She violated that. She violated my safety, tried to kidnap my daughter. I'm terrified she could come back. Anything could happen. She could be successful next time and take her, take my other child. Anything is possible."
Miller said that Parker “pressured” her to have a glass of wine and ingest the cupcakes she brought to her home on Feb. 5.
But after a few bites, the mother said, she lost feeling in her face and limbs, and subsequently demanded Parker and her 16-year-old daughter leave her home.
“As I ate one, my lips and face started to feel numb,” Miller described. “My legs and arms started to go numb and I repeatedly told the photographer and her daughter to leave my house.”
After being assessed by medical staff, Miller claimed she was informed her symptoms were consistent with ingesting a “date-rape drug.” She contacted Pierce County authorities shortly afterward.
The woman also told detectives that Parker took selfies with her newborn and she observed Parker wiping fingerprints off anything she touched in the woman’s residence.
Police documents also show that for months, Parker allegedly had a scheme to forgo the traditional — and legal — means of adopting a child, at one point suggesting to a romantic partner that the couple should abduct a toddler from a homeless person.
“[Parker] talked about how they should get a kid from a homeless person and raise the child together in a nice house," an arrest affidavit obtained by ABC News stated.
The former municipal politician also allegedly asked the man if he could conjure up a dosage of Gamma-hydroxybutyrate — or GHB, commonly referred to as the date rape drug. Police say Parker told the man she would “marry him on the spot” if he found her a baby girl in five weeks.
However, the woman’s attorney Ephraim Benjamin, blasted the charges against his client, referring to the accusations against Parker as “a lot of smoke.” He claimed the accused woman has received death threats since her case was announced.
"She is maintaining her innocence and she intends to fight these charges to the best of her ability," Benjamin said, according to ABC News.
Benjamin also represented Parker in 2014 after she was charged with felony reckless burning. Parker, along with another man, was supposedly injured when a 20mm shell they found from a military base detonated in their faces, according to the Tacoma News Tribune. Parker, who was 33 at the time, was originally charged with possession of an explosive device and reckless endangerment.
She was ultimately dealt a suspended sentence in the case.
