Photo: Traci Fant/Facebook
The woman accused of kidnapping two young sisters was previously charged with kidnapping a 4-day-old baby and is now facing allegations she falsely faked a pregnancy in a separate case.
Lakesha Brown, 42, was arrested Monday (August 17) after Atlanta police found 4-year-old Zola Cooper and her 11-month-old sister, Norah Cooper, inside a locked trailer without air conditioning.
According to arrest warrants obtained by WSB-TV, the girls’ mother, Elicia Redding, met Brown through a Facebook group for expectant mothers and had known her for nearly a year beforeBrown offered to babysit the girls.
Redding told WSB-TV that she trusted Brown and agreed to let her take the children to Walmart and Candytopia on August 15. When Brown did not return the girls, Redding said Brown gave her several explanations, including claiming she had been in an accident and that the children were in the custody of Georgia’s Division of Family and Children Services.
Police found no record of the girls being taken into state custody.
Investigators later located Brown and the children at an apartment complex, where officers heard a child crying inside a trailer. The sisters were taken to a hospital for evaluation and later reunited with their mother.
Brown’s arrest has also renewed attention on a strikingly similar kidnapping case from five years earlier. Police told FOX10 News that in 2021 Brown was charged with first-degree kidnapping in connection with the disappearance of a 4-day-old Kamarion Taylor in Alabama. The newborn was later found safe and reunited with his family.
And this week, CBS News Atlanta revealed another case involving Brown, stemming from an alleged fake pregnancy.
According to the outlet, authorities in Paulding County accused Brown of falsely claiming she was pregnant and using photographs to convince a man that she had given birth in 2025.
Brown faces two counts of kidnapping and two counts of first-degree cruelty to children in the Atlanta case.
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