A four month old girl is back with her mother today after a harrowing ordeal.

Christie Baker-Gullett of Edwardsville was riding with another woman who stopped to visit a friend in Pontoon Beach, Illinois. Kate Ashcraft indicated she would only be a short time and left Christie and her baby, Maria Mae Baker Gomez in the car. The baby was asleep in a car seat in the back seat of the 2001 Oldsmobile Alero four-door.

Christie Gullett waited for a time and then decided to alert her friend Kate to the fact that they needed to leave to pick up Christie's other daughter. Christie left Maria asleep in the car with the engine running to keep her daughter warm and headed for the apartment. Gullett says she hadn't even made it up eight steps and someone had jumped in the car and was driving away.

Pontoon Beach Police put out alerts for the car and the child and just before eight o'clock Sunday night, they were told the baby had been found in Venice, Illinois. Mother and daughter were reunited at the Venice Police Department where Christie was told a passerby walked past a white sedan and heard a baby crying. Police were called and the baby was found unharmed in the back seat of the car, the baby still strapped in her car seat.

Witnesses told police they saw a man get out of the car and run toward a Venice apartment complex. Canine units were brought in, but were unsuccessful in locating a suspect.

Police call this a crime of opportunity. They agree with Christie Gullett and Kate Ashcraft that the thief probably was unaware there was a baby in the car until the thief arrived in Venice. The car was abandoned across the street from the Venice Police Station.