Her Baby Was Stolen 45 Years Ago HELP US FIND HLM

ANGELINA MAREK HASN’T SEEN HER SON SINCE HE WAS 17 DAYS OLD—BUT SHE STILL BELIEVES HE’S ALIVE

- K.C. BAKER,REBECCA STUMPF

New parents Kevin Verville Sr., a 21-year-old U.S. Marine corporal, and his Filipino-born wife, Angelina, 22, were over the moon with the birth of their first child, Kevin Jr., on June 14, 1980. Since Kevin Jr. was born with jaundice, a common newborn condition, doctors kept him in the hospital for a week, but soon the family was getting used to their new routine at home. On July 1 of that year they had just returned from the grocery store when they heard a knock at the door of their apartment at an off-base housing complex near Camp Pendleton in Oceanside, Calif., where Kevin Sr. was stationed.

It was a social worker who had stopped by earlier that week to enroll the Vervilles in a program for junior military families and offer them a stipend for diapers and formula. Kevin was busy unloading the groceries, so the social worker, who introduced herself as Sheila, said she would give Angelina and her child a ride to her office to weigh and measure Kevin Jr. for the program.

During the drive, Sheila—who appeared to be pregnant—made an unannounced stop at another house near the base and asked Angelina whether she would mind knocking on the door for her. “My mom says she wasn’t even out of the car all the way, and the lady drove off,” says the Vervilles’ daughter Angelica Ramsey, 40, speaking on behalf of her mother, now 67, who is unable to talk as a result of strokes she has suffered. Angelina helplessly waved her arms as the car sped away with her baby inside. “She was in shock,” says Angelica. “She couldn’t talk, even when a man in a truck stopped to pick her up and bring her to the police station.”