MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — The woman accused of kidnapping a baby boy last week from a south Minneapolis apartment made her first court appearance Monday.
Isabel Diaz-Castillo, 30, appeared in handcuffs wearing orange jail scrubs and spoke through a Spanish interpreter behind glass. She faces one count of felony kidnapping.
Diaz-Castillo had a public defender assigned to her case Monday and her bail, set at $100,000 last week, will remain. She didn’t say much, but had questions for her newly appointed attorney.
Investigators say last Wednesday Diaz-Castillo took 8-month-old Carlos Orozco from his mother’s home near Franklin and Portland Avenues in south Minneapolis. It happened while the boy’s mother was showering.
Four hours later, Minneapolis Police received a tip and found Diaz-Castillo and the baby boy in the basement of a home belonging to a relative of Diaz-Castillo.
The child’s hair had been cut and Diaz-Castillo also had some suitcases packed at her home, her boyfriend said they were going to be moving at the end of the month.
Orozco’s mother, Vicky Orozco, says she met Diaz-Castillo a month earlier at Laundromat. The Hennepin County Attorney says Diaz-Castillo took an “extreme interest” in the boy.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have an immigration hold on Diaz-Castillo. Federal investigators say she’s in the United States illegally.
Last week, the Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said that usually someone is deported after they are tried and their sentence has been completed.
Daiz-Castillo will be back in court on March 26.
