No charges have been filed so far against the woman. Police say she left a baby in a store in a Darien strip mall then, apparently, tried to cover it up.
It happened Thursday morning around 8:15 a.m. at the Walgreens drug store near 75th and Cass Avenue. Detectives say that is where either a customer or a store employee found the child in a shopping cart inside the store.
"Our units received a call of a baby left abandoned inside one of our local stores in a shopping cart," said Darien Police Chief Ernest Brown. "Darien police officers responded and located an infant.
As officers were dispatched to the store and were told the woman spoke to a clerk and left without the child, investigators say the woman who police say could be the child's mother later called 911 on her cell phone and told police that someone took her baby from a restaurant in another town.
"We got a 911 call from one of the clerks that's employed by the Walgreens and she was able to give us the information on a possible vehicle got into and left the parking lot, and that helped us locate her," said Darien Deputy Police Chief John Cooper.
The Caucasian baby boy, who is believed to be about a year old, was taken to Good Samaritan Hospital to be checked out.
Authorities are reminding the public about Illinois' Safe Haven Law, which allows parents to leave infants 30 days or younger at police stations firehouses and hospitals -- no questions asked.
"It gives parents that can't handle -- especially the babies -- a place to bring them where we know the baby will be safe," Cooper said. "We've seen the tragic stories."
Police say it is a happier ending to what could have been a tragic situation.
"The baby's safe, and it looks like a happy ending to an otherwise confusing story," said Brown.
The woman is being questioned by investigators. She could be facing child abandonment charges.
