Abduction charge against Maryland woman put on inactive docket

A Hagerstown-area woman's case for allegedly abducting a child last year was recently placed on the inactive docket for Washington County Circuit Court.

The 2-month-old boy was found over a day later, safe and sound, in Washington, D.C.

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Defense attorney Deborah Warner-Dennis and Deputy State's Attorney Sarah Mollett-Gaumer, standing in for another prosecutor at the June 1 court hearing, said witness issues arose and the parties agreed to place the abduction case and another case on the stet, or inactive docket.

Warner-Dennis also said the "child's welfare was at issue," when the incident arose last year. The child's mother had left the child in the apartment while she went out "to prostitute," Warner-Dennis said.

The case had a "lot of twists and turns," Warner-Dennis told Judge Mark K. Boyer.

Mollett-Gaumer told the judge it was a "somewhat convoluted situation", that the child was "essentially left" in the apartment by his mother, and that the situation was "perhaps not as clear cut as the charges imply."

Boyer agreed to place charges against Tianna Mona Dawkins, 30, for harboring/abducting a child younger than 12 and fourth-degree burglary on the inactive docket. The burglary charge was filed in February against Dawkins for allegedly breaking and entering the child's home on March 8, 2022, the day of the abduction.

If the abduction and burglary cases are not reopened in three years, the charges go away, Warner-Dennis said. The charges can be reopened for any reason the first year, but after that year can be reopened only if the court finds good cause.

Police agencies work to find missing child

The case of the missing 2-month-old boy garnered a lot of attention last March 8 and 9 while Hagerstown Police and other authorities worked to find the boy. A Hagerstown Police post on Facebook about the missing child was shared several thousand times.

According to court documents, the child’s mother flagged down a Hagerstown Police officer at 5:16 a.m. on March 8 at Franklin and Prospect streets.

She told the officer she left the baby with a male acquaintance in an apartment in the 200 block of West Franklin Street. But the child was not there when she returned.

The mother said another woman told her Dawkins had taken the child, court documents state. Later in the investigation, that woman told an investigator she accompanied Dawkins to the apartment and Dawkins took the baby.

The male acquaintance told police the mother “never actually asked him to watch Zori while she was out,” court documents state. After returning to the apartment after a little while, the male saw “Dawkins coming out of the apartment with Zori in her arms,” charging documents state.

“He didn’t think anything of it at first" because Dawkins and the child’s mother knew each other and because Dawkins at one point had been involved in the baby’s life, charging documents state.

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Data related to Dawkins’ cellphone and other information led police to the 3000 block of East Capitol Street NE in Washington, D.C. A check with law enforcement databases and information confirmed Dawkins had family living in that area, charging documents state.

Surveillance camera footage on March 8 showed Dawkins, a white female driver and another woman enter the building with the white female carrying a baby believed to be Zori through the entrance hallway, court records state.

The next morning, the Metropolitan Police’s Child Exploitation & Human Trafficking Task Force found Dawkins walking back to the apartment building and took her into custody, court records state.

When the apartment was searched, baby Zori was found in the care of the white female driver who was identified as Sarah D. Green, court records state.

Dawkins allegedly told detectives Green was the driver who took her to two Hagerstown addresses. The addresses included the apartment in the 200 block of West Franklin Street were baby Zori lived, court records state. Dawkins also alleged that after she took the baby from the home, Green drove her and the baby to a third Hagerstown address for a brief time before taking them to the D.C. apartment building.

When the baby was recovered, he was placed in the custody of a child protective services unit in Washington with the understanding he would be transferred to child protective services in Washington County, according to Hagerstown Police.

Charge dropped earlier against co-defendant in baby abduction case

An abduction charge was dismissed against Green, 42, earlier this year. At the time Green was initially charged, she had a Frederick, Md., address and later filed a change of address for Sabillasville, Md.

Asked at the time why the state dismissed charges against Green, Washington County State’s Attorney Gina Cirincion said through an email that “The evidence against Ms. Green required the testimony of a charged co-defendant, and the State did not want to make a deal with that defendant for her testimony.”