BABY Lucus’s mother Simone Cedras has spoken of her relief and elation at her child’s safe return on the eve of alleged baby abductor Marinda Julies’s appearance in the Kuils River Magistrate’s Court where she will be charged with the abduction of the eight-month-old boy.
As she sat breastfeeding the little baby boy in their backyard shack in Scottsdene, Kraaifontein yesterday, Cedras said: “I held him tight and kissed him and I cried.”
Lucus’s grandmother Mercia Cedras said the family cannot understand “why she took Lucus”.
“I felt happy and my heart jumped with joy when they brought him back,” she said.
Cedras said Julies had allegedly taken Lucus from his grandmother (Mercia Cedras) on Tuesday last week on the pretext of going to show him to someone in the neighbourhood.
When Julies failed to bring Lucus home, his family and the police, as well as local neighbourhood watches and the community, had begun a frantic search for him.
Lucus was subsequently found abandoned late on Thursday afternoon alongside a house further down the street from where his parents live, said a relative, Henrolitte Levendal, who added: “The one who stole the child, had put it down next to a house and ran away.”
Cedras said that when detectives brought Lucus to her on Thursday, she and the neighbours had been so relieved that they all shouted with joy.
“He looked healthy, but seemed to have lost a little bit of weight.
“I think she (Julies) had looked after him, because he appeared neat,” said Cedras.
Lucus’s grandmother Mercia said: “We feel actually very sorry for her (Julies). I don’t believe she would have done any harm to the child as she likes children, but had miscarriages in the past.”
Lucus’s grandfather Jan Herdien said he was glad the baby had been returned home safely.
“But her (Julies) type must be punished, because it was a dangerous thing that she did,” Herdien said.