Baby kidnapping suspect has court hearing pushed back; co-defendant pleads not guilty

• Sapphire McDougleh was scheduled to be arraigned in Canton Municipal Court on Monday but was unable to appear.
• McDougleh is accused of impersonating a county Child Protective Services worker and took a 3-week-old from her mother's Canton home.
• Co-defendant Brandon Savage entered a plea of not guilty to complicity to kidnapping, a first-degree felony.

CANTON ‒ The first court appearance was postponed Monday for the woman accused of posing as a social worker and taking an infant last week from her mother's Canton home.

Sapphire McDougleh, 33, was scheduled to be arraigned in Canton Municipal Court via video conference from the Stark County Jail but was unable to appear because she was in the hospital, a jail employee said in court. It is unclear why she was at the hospital. She is charged with felony kidnapping.

Her arraignment was continued to 9:30 a.m. Tuesday.

McDougleh's co-defendant, Brandon Savage, 20, of Coshocton, appeared via video conference from the jail and entered a plea of not guilty to the charge of complicity to kidnapping, a first-degree felony.

Magistrate Derek McClowry set bond at $750,000. Savage will be back in court at 10 a.m. Thursday for a status conference.

Savage was with McDougleh when Coshocton County Sheriff's deputies arrested the pair on Friday and recovered the child, investigators have said. Savage is listed in police reports as the owner of the vehicle.

Impersonating a Stark County Child Protective Services worker

The parents of a 3-week-old girl told police a woman wearing a name tag and claiming to work for the county's Children Protective Services division came to their home around 8:30 a.m. Thursday.

Police were called to the baby's home in the 600 block of Alan Page Drive SE at 10:28 a.m. Friday.

According to 911 calls obtained by The Repository, police received a 911 call around 4 a.m. Friday from the child's parents, who said their baby had been taken but they received no paperwork or information.

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The father told 911 dispatchers that the woman forced her way into their home.

"She literally just came in the house, snatched our daughter up," he told the dispatcher.

Canton Police Lt. Dennis Garren said the initial call was referred to Child Protective Services. A dispatcher told the parents a caseworker would call them.

The mother called 911 hours later and said CPS told her there were no records about her daughter. Police responded at 10:28 a.m. Friday.

She told police the woman who came to the house knew information about the baby's health.

The father said in a 911 call that she tried to take the couple's four children but the two oldest were at school and they wouldn't allow her to take the other son.

He claimed the only reason the woman got away with the baby was "because she refused to per her down."

Garren said Monday the victims did not know McDougleh and lived in the same apartment complex - Skyline Terrance Apartments. According to Google Maps, the victim's apartment building is a three-minute walk from McDougleh's apartment building.

It is believed that McDougleh recently moved out of the Alan Page apartment to the Coshocton area, Garren added. According to jail records, McDougleh and Savage list their home address as the same place in Coshocton.

The relationship between McDougleh and co-defendant Savage remains unclear, he said.

CPS officials: Never had someone impersonate a social worker in Stark

McDougleh has never been employed by the Stark County Child Protective Services, officials said on Monday.

It is unlikely she had an official badge issued to employees, said Rob Myers, deputy director the Department of Job and Family Services, said.

CPS employees are issued a photo badge as identification as well as to gain entrance to the county offices. If an employee misplaces an ID badge, it is deactivated and a new badge is issued, he said. There are no reports of missing employee badges, he said.

"You don't hear about this very often, particularly not here," he said. "I have never heard of it happening here. I'm curious about the situation and how it happened. Certainly, we don't want people in a position of authority masquerading around."

Reach Amy at 330-775-1135 or amy.knapp@indeonline.com.

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