Florida couple accused of kidnapping Washington baby plead not guilty

FEDERAL WAY, Wash. - A Florida couple accused of driving cross-country to kidnap their own relative’s baby faced a judge Thursday.

On Thursday, the two suspects were arraigned at the Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent on charges including kidnapping, assault and robbery.

Marlly Ardila-Urrego and her accomplice Chun Ho Vincent Lai are the suspects from Miami. King County prosecutors charged both with attacking the mother, kidnapping her baby, assaulting her toddler, and stealing the mother’s cellphones and tablets so she couldn’t call for help. 

PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Florida couple kidnaps Washington baby, posing as Amazon driver: Court docs

"It is unusual to get a case like this, but we looked at this, the information we received from police investigators, and thought these multiple felony charges were appropriate," said Casey McNerthney, spokesperson for King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.

Prosecutors said the scheme took sophisticated planning.

The mother, her husband, and their children — a two-year-old and a seven-month-old girl — moved into their Federal Way apartment in February. Detectives said the mother’s cousin, suspect Ardila-Urrego, told the family she was sending them a new bed frame from Amazon, expected to arrive on February 20th.

On that day, surveillance cameras captured two people in gray-colored clothing, one of them holding a box. They were standing next to a white or light-colored car before they walked out of frame. 

Charging documents said the mother was home alone with her children while her husband was at work. The mother, who speaks Spanish, heard loud knocking on her door. Documents stated, "She looked through the peephole and saw a male wearing a gray jacket and sunglasses who was holding an Amazon box. [She] opened the door and the male punched her multiple times in the face… [She] she screamed for help."

In the documents, the mother told Federal Way detectives a woman pinned her down from behind while "the male shoved [her] face-down onto the ground and bound her hands and feet with zip-ties." Detectives said as the suspects took the seven-month-old baby girl, cellphones and tablet, the man gagged the mother with her child’s own clothes, tapped her mouth shut, as well as tape around her toddler’s mouth. The two were shoved into a bedroom.

Detectives said the suspects got away with the baby. Surveillance cameras captured the suspects returning to their light-colored car with a red bag in hand that appeared heavy.

The mother broke free of the zip ties from her ankles and ran outside to search for the suspects but could not find them. She quickly found help from maintenance workers on site who cut the zip ties off her hands and tape from her mouth.

Federal Way Police Department launched an investigation, with Washington State Patrol and FBI assisting in the search for the baby. State troopers ultimately stopped the two suspects with the baby on I-90 in Gray County west of Moses Lake, almost 200 miles away from the scene.

A motive for the kidnapping is under investigation. 

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According to documents, the mother’s father told detectives Ardila-Urrego is his niece, who lives in Miami, and believed she was involved in the baby’s adduction. The documents said the father told detectives "Marlly had been persistent in asking for [victim’s] address which he noted as being unusual as Marlly does not often keep in contact with family." The documents also stated the father recalled Ardila-Urrego mentioning "something about having a baby herself and then selling the baby for money."

During their arraignments, Ardila-Urrego and Lai both pleaded not guilty. Their defense attorneys requested to hide their faces from cameras, claiming this is a case of mistaken identity. Judge Johanna Bender granted the request.

"It may not be likely that there are identity issues at trial. It is certainly at this stage of the proceedings, understandable to me why the defense would be raising identity as a potential issue," said Bender.

The suspects are being held at King County Jail on $750,000 bail each.