An Illinois couple, who posted an ad to Craigslist in a desperate attempt to adopt a child, says they were deceived by a supposedly pregnant woman up until the time the baby was due.
Mark and Tracy Dziekanski told ABC News’ “20/20” that they became so set on having a baby that they posted an ad on Craigslist on Jan. 26, 2013.
The couple, who had long been unable to conceive, knew that traditional adoption methods could be extremely lengthy and expensive.
A month after their post, the Dziekanskis received an email from Heather Taylor, who lived in Pitt County, North Carolina.
“She basically said, ‘You’re the couple that I’ve been looking for,’” said Mark Dziekanski. “She knew that she couldn’t take care of this baby because she already had her other daughter, Lilian, and it was hard to take care of her.”
Since Taylor spun such a believable story, the eager parents-to-be spared no expense in helping the woman, as long as the costs were related to the baby.
“Ms. Taylor told them that she was expecting a baby and was looking for a nice couple to take [care] of the baby for her ’cause she knew she couldn’t afford it financially,” Pitt County Sheriff’s Office Detective David Flynn, who worked on the case, told “20/20.”
However, the couple says that they never met Taylor in person because they didn’t want to push their luck with the woman.
“We were going to get together. We were planning on meeting her and getting to know her and, I mean, we were going to go through the whole 10 yards,” Mark Dziekanski said. “And it just never happened.”
The couple says that they put their trust in Taylor because they really had no other choice—they just wanted a baby.
“We just wanted [to have a baby] so bad,” Tracy Dziekanski said. “And when you want kids, and you can’t have kids, and you want more than anything to have a family, you just go with it. … I’m not doing anything to screw up this chance, you know, to … have a baby, especially a newborn.”
As the due date approached, the couple became more assured that they would soon have the child they always wanted. Finally, they got the call—Taylor was in labor.
“She’s having a C-section, and I’m … on the phone with her in the delivery room,” Tracy Dziekanski said. “You could hear like … the heart rate and everything, like she was really at a hospital. … Then a couple of minutes later, there’s a baby crying.”
The thrilled couple couldn’t have been any more overjoyed, and they received photos of the newborn, they decided to name their new baby girl Anna Rosemarie.
Yet, when the time came to bring Anna home, Mark and Tracy Dziekanski said they noticed red flags.
“I think the first one was when she said she was bringing us the baby,” Tracy Dziekanski recalled, “said she was on her way here, and she made it to Indianapolis. And her brother was in a car accident so she had to go back home.”
Also, Mark and Tracy realized that Taylor appeared to be sending them pictures of different babies.
At one point, the young mom called the Dziekanskis to let them know that she had made her way to Illinois to bring them their daughter, and that she would be staying in a nearby hotel.
However, after the call, the couple couldn’t get ahold of Taylor anymore. Finally, she called to tell them that her mother had decided to help her out financially, and she was going to raise the baby on her own.
“I’m like, ‘Come on. This is getting absolutely ridiculous, this whole story,’” Tracy Dziekanski said.
The Dziekanskis decided to contact people with Craigslist ads looking to adopt children and ask them if they dealt with anyone named Heather Taylor. One woman in North Carolina responded.
The woman, named Nicole, told Tracy Dziekanski a familiar story. Taylor told Nicole that she was pregnant with a baby, one she agreed to give to Nicole.
“Heather went to extreme efforts to convince … both couples that she was pregnant,” Detective Flynn said. “From my understanding, and speaking with Heather Taylor’s family, she’s had a long history of making up stories about other things.”
Even after learning that Taylor lied to them, Mark and Tracy Dziekanski said they told Taylor they would not involve the police if she paid them back, but she never did.
Investigators say that Taylor did not get very much money out of the two cons—only about $2,000. They believe that she must have been pulling the prank for attention.
Taylor was sentenced to between 6 and 17 months in jail. Her sentence was reduced to 36 months supervised probation, and she had to seek mental treatment.
Mark and Tracy Dziekanski now have a fostering license and hope to adopt children through the fostering process.
“It is hard [seeing children], ’cause our little one would be a year old and we’d be taking her to the park, maybe not now but maybe further in the summer, chasing her around like crazy,” Tracy Dziekanski said. “We have so much love to give any baby, any child that there’s no way that … it’s not going happen.”
“I’ll never forgive her,” Mark Dziekanski said.
What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments!