Appearing in court for the first time Wednesday afternoon, Grisel Ramirez avoided cameras as she sat inside the designated defendant area in the courtroom.
Ramirez was charged Wednesday with five counts of burglary and one count of kidnapping along with an enhancement for kidnapping a child under the age of 14. Her arraignment was continued until August 31. She was held on $1 million bond.
On Monday morning, Ramirez walked into the Garden Grove Hospital Medical Center and allegedly tried to steal a newborn baby girl. She was stopped after the baby's security bracelet triggered an alarm, alerting hospital workers that a kidnapping was in progress. A doctor reportedly found the infant girl in a tote bag Ramirez was carrying.
"At this point we don't have enough information to suggest any mental illness but I can tell there was a great deal of planning going into this, prior to the taking of the baby," said Orange County Senior Deputy District Attorney John Christl. "Ms. Grisel was actually wearing medical scrubs, she did her homework in regards to the different rooms that had newborn babies and she was asking questions of the mothers."
Christl says witnesses reported seeing Ramirez at Western Medical Center in Santa Ana in late July, with a tote bag in hand going into maternity rooms, questioning new mothers there.
