Baby Girl Abducted After Mother Lets Stranger Hold Her

Eleanor Marie Williams was just 18-years-old when she gave birth to April Nicole Williams, nicknamed Niki, on August 17, 1983. The young mother lived on a farm in southeastern Virginia and had never gone further than 30 miles from her home.

Eleanor’s brother was stationed at Fort Riley, in Kansas, and he had “introduced” his sister to a fellow soldier, Kevin. After the two wrote to each other and talked over the phone during Eleanor’s pregnancy, they decided to finally meet and spend the holidays together.

On December 2, 1983, Eleanor and 3-month-old April boarded a bus in Suffolk, Virginia. Their destination was Junction City, Kansas, where they’d meet Kevin.

After a 200 mile trip, they had a three-hour layover at the Trailways bus station in downtown Washington. Eleanor was sitting down in the passenger waiting area when a friendly woman sat beside her and told her how pretty her daughter was. She introduced herself as Latoya and asked where they were traveling.

During their conversation, Latoya asked if she could hold April. Eleanor agreed. Latoya then said the baby needed a diaper change. Seeing that Eleanor was tired, she offered to take April to the bathroom and change her.

After ten minutes, Eleanor began to worry as Latoya had not yet returned with her daughter. She searched for them, but to no avail.

The woman who abducted April may have been using a fake name. Either way, Latoya was described as an African-American in her twenties. She was 5'3" with short, wavy, dark red hair. Both her ears were pierced with two holes in each. Latoya was wearing green pants and a white ski jacket with purple floral lining.

She may go by Rene or Rene Latoya and might have a sister named Latisha or Natisha. Her astrological sign could be Leo. The following is a sketch of the woman's face:

A Metrobus driver and several passengers reported seeing a woman matching Latoya’s description with an infant. They got off near the Prince George’s County line. Authorities canvassed the area, but there were no signs of Latoya or April.

Eleanor was questioned by authorities and passed a polygraph test. She is not a suspect.

Authorities believe Latoya abducted April so she could raise her as her own.

In 2018, Eleanor spoke publicly about her daughter’s abduction for the first time since 1983 in an interview with The Washington Post.

A month after her daughter went missing, she had to leave Virginia,

“I just couldn’t deal with everybody looking at me and talking about me and having something to say about my situation.

It was always, ‘She gave her baby away.’ People were always whispering that. Or, ‘She’s just not fit to have a child.’ I mean, the way people are, they’re cruel. They’re mean. Until something happens to them.”

She went to Kansas where she met with Kevin. Their relationship didn’t last but she gave birth to their daughter shortly after,

“He knew the only reason for me visiting him was because I wanted to get pregnant again, because I wanted another April. I thought it was going to make me feel better. I thought it would make it hurt less. But actually all it did was make it hurt more.”

Eleanor has lived in Connecticut since 1988, where she is a surgical technician. She has a daughter and son, with whom she is very close, and two grandchildren.

She has suffered extreme guilt ever since the fateful day at the bus station, so much so she even contemplated suicide,

“There were times when I was younger when I wanted to commit suicide, I just felt so bad and so guilty.

But my other kids were always my strength. Like, what would they do if anything ever happened to me? I remember coming home one night after work and thinking, ‘I could just drive off the road into a tree, and nobody would ever know that I wanted to do this.’ And then I thought about my other kids.”

Every year, she spends April’s birthday alone,

“I sit and just think about her, hold on to her picture, cry. And I just wonder what she could be doing.”

April is an African-American with black hair and black eyes. She has a small birthmark on top of her left wrist in a straight line.

April Nicole Williams is now 38-years-old. Presumably, she doesn’t know she is a missing person.