Woman says she fought off kidnapping attempt by Baby Sofia suspect

The way Adriana Portillo sees it, she and her young daughters – and the unborn baby she was carrying at the time – were the first intended victims of Yesenia Sesmas.

Sesmas is the woman who police suspect of fatally shooting a young Wichita mother and kidnapping her 6-day-old baby last week. Portillo found out Monday that Sesmas had been arrested in last week’s tragedy.

Portillo sat down at her south Wichita dining room table Monday night and recounted how Sesmas was arrested this past summer and charged with aggravated battery and kidnapping in a case in which Portillo and her daughters were the victims.

The following is Portillo’s account of what happened.

It was July 25. Portillo had been friends with Sesmas for years but knew her by the name of Patricia Hernandez. Sesmas had invited Portillo and her 10- and 3-year-old daughters to the basement of a home Sesmas rented on South Elizabeth. Portillo was eight months’ pregnant. Sesmas was moving to Dallas and offered Portillo clothing and a TV she wasn’t taking with her.

Things got strange, then violent, Portillo said.

Sesmas, who had brought duct tape and a knife with her, took Portillo’s cellphone and said, “What I’m telling you, I’m not playing. I’m not kidding around. You got to do it.

“You got to put duct tape on your girls.”

Sesmas said she needed $10,000 and had two other people working with her. Sesmas, Portillo said, told her the two others were friends of Portillo’s husband and thought he could afford to pay that much to get his daughters back.

Portillo said at first she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She and her husband aren’t rich.

“Your husband is going to have to pay it if you want your girls back,” Sesmas told her, Portillo said.

Then a fight broke out between the two women, Portillo said.

As Sesmas tried to run up the stairs, Portillo grabbed the back of her hair and pulled her back down. As the fight continued, Portillo was trying to hold Sesmas back from her daughters. The oldest managed to call police after retrieving her mother’s phone.

To defend herself and her daughters, Portillo said, she hit Sesmas in the eye.

The pregnant woman and her daughters ran to their van outside and got in, but Sesmas “kept on trying to get inside the van,” Portillo said.

“She tried choking my (10-year-old) daughter.”

As the struggle continued, Portillo put the van in reverse. But Sesmas grabbed the gear lever and put it back in park. Sesmas grabbed the keys and threw them.

Portillo saw a rental-delivery truck and worried that it might be carrying the “two others” that Sesmas said were working with her.

Sesmas blurted out, “I’m sorry for what I’m doing.”

“I said, ‘You didn’t have to do anything like this.’ ”

By then, police had arrived.

Portillo said Sesmas told her: “Don’t say anything. … Tell them we were playing.”

Police arrested Sesmas. Records show that Sesmas 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.

Later, Portillo said, police told her they found pepper spray as well as the knife and duct tape.

Portillo didn’t learn that Sesmas had been arrested in the other case involving the slain mother and kidnapped baby until Monday, when authorities announced it.

Portillo thought Sesmas was still in jail, facing charges in the case from the summer.

“I can’t believe they let her out of jail,” Portillo said. She wonders how Sesmas was able to post bond.

When Portillo found out Sesmas was accused of killing the mother and taking the woman’s 6-day old baby, she wondered whether Sesmas had been wanting to take the unborn baby Portillo was carrying during the fight in the basement.

Sesmas had said that she wanted a baby girl and that she couldn’t get pregnant, Portillo said.

Portillo later gave birth to a girl.

This story was originally published November 21, 2016 at 7:57 PM with the headline "Woman says she fought off kidnapping attempt by Baby Sofia suspect."