A tip, a raid and a kidnapped baby rescued

It was a tip late Friday night, police say, that led investigators looking for a missing Wichita baby to a home in a central Dallas neighborhood.

The house under surveillance was in the 900 block of a street called Signet. Members of the Dallas Police Department SWAT team, ready to mount a raid, weren’t sure what they would find inside.

But they hoped an infant would be there – alive and safe after being stolen from her mother two days before.

She was.

“This investigation was extremely complex and involved outstanding collaboration and teamwork from numerous agencies,” Lt. Todd Ojile, head of the Wichita Police Department’s homicide unit, said Monday.

He shared new details of how authorities tracked down Sofia Gonzales, who went missing from her Wichita apartment after her mother was killed Thursday afternoon, allegedly by a woman who faked a pregnancy and tried to claim Sofia as her own.

The rescue, Ojile said, wouldn’t have happened without a team effort on the part of Wichita police, the FBI and Dallas authorities.

The “professionalism, coordination and cooperation between all these agencies was incredible,” he said, “which enabled us to bring the safe return of Sofia to her family.”

The woman accused of kidnapping the newborn and murdering 27-year-old Laura Abarca-Nogueda is Yesenia Sesmas, a 34-year-old Texas resident and mother police say has lived in Wichita in the past and knew her victim.

Ojile said Sesmas and Abarca-Nogueda had been acquainted for a few years. But he wouldn’t elaborate further on the specifics of the women’s relationship.

Sesmas was arrested in Dallas after a police department SWAT team there executed a search warrant at the home on Signet at about 4:15 a.m. Saturday, Ojile said.

Sofia, whose name has also been spelled Sophia by police, was found alive and safe inside. She was taken to a Dallas hospital for a health evaluation, he said, and has since been reunited with her family. She is 10 days old now.

Through interviews, Ojile said, “detectives learned that Sesmas had faked a pregnancy over the last several months and then had traveled to Wichita, Kansas, where she committed the murder and the kidnapping of Sofia and then returned to Dallas.”

Sesmas was booked into the Dallas County Jail on an outstanding felony warrant from Sedgwick County, Ojile said. She is being held on suspicion of first-degree murder and aggravated kidnapping, he said.

Ojile said Sesmas is originally from Texas, has lived in Wichita and recently moved back to her home state.

The investigation

Abarca-Nogueda was found shot to death in her apartment in the 200 block of North Brunswick at around 3:30 p.m. Thursday by her live-in boyfriend, 26. He had just arrived home from work, police have said.

After finding his girlfriend dead, he searched the apartment for Sofia – the couple’s then-6-day-old daughter – but couldn’t find her.

Police also could not find the baby when they scoured the home and neighborhood, near Maple and Ridge.

Authorities on Thursday quickly asked for the public’s help to find the newborn but had no immediate suspects or leads.

On Friday, about 25 FBI agents set up a command post in Wichita City Hall, the site of police headquarters, to aid in the investigation.

“The investigation lasted all day Friday and into Friday night,” Ojile said, when authorities were tipped off to a possible suspect – Sesmas – and the address of the Dallas home where Sofia ultimately was discovered unharmed.

“Immediately upon learning that Sofia was found safely in Dallas, investigators from the Wichita Police Department boarded a Sedgwick County sheriff’s plane and flew to Dallas, Texas, to conduct the interviews,” Ojile said.

Three other people who live at the Dallas address where Sesmas was arrested were questioned at the Dallas Police Department but knew nothing of the scheme, Ojile said. They are Sesmas’ boyfriend, her son and her niece, he said.

At some point, Sesmas will be extradited to Kansas to face criminal charges. If she chooses to come to the state freely, that could happen in a little more than a week, Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett said Monday.

But if she fights the procedure, getting her back to Kansas could take longer.

“On the long end of things, maybe 90 days,” Bennett said.

Wichita police presented the facts of the kidnapping and homicide case to Bennett’s office on Monday afternoon. In an e-mailed statement sent after the meeting, Bennett said he expected to announce Tuesday morning the exact charges that will be filed against Sesmas.

He added that “all persons accused of any crime retain the presumption of innocence until proven guilty.”

Sesmas will have the opportunity to retain an attorney or apply for court-appointed counsel after she’s brought back to Kansas and makes her first appearance in court.

Other kidnapping allegations

It is not the first time Sesmas has been accused of a serious crime in Sedgwick County.

Police and jail records show she was booked into the Sedgwick County Jail on July 25 on suspicion of two counts of aggravated battery, two counts of aggravated kidnapping and one count of kidnapping.

A 37-year-old woman, who was pregnant, told police that Sesmas battered her and her daughter, according to a July 25 Wichita police report. The alleged victim also said Sesmas kidnapped her and two other people, the report said.

It’s not clear from court records whether Sesmas was ever charged in the case. If she has been, she had not made a first appearance on the counts as of Monday.

This story was originally published November 21, 2016 at 7:30 PM with the headline "A tip, a raid and a kidnapped baby rescued."