The woman accused of abducting a newborn from the mother's hospital room last week had recently experienced her second miscarriage, a relative said Tuesday.
Rayshaun Parson has become so depressed that family members scarcely recognize her, the 21-year-old's great-aunt said as Parson was arraigned Tuesday on a federal kidnapping charge.
"We do not know this person," said D. Taara Williams of Lafayette, La., a bishop with the Maryland-based African-American Catholic Congregation. "This is not the Rayshaun we know and love and have nurtured."
Parson will be held in a jail in Dickens, Texas, pending a detention hearing Friday. Federal authorities charged her Monday in the abduction of Mychael Darthard-Dawodu, who was 3 days old when taken.
A woman posing as a medical worker walked out of Covenant Lakeside Hospital on Saturday with the baby in her purse, police said. The newborn was found a day later in Clovis, N.M., about 100 miles away.
At no time was the newborn "in harm's way," Williams said.
In addition to being in court Tuesday to support Parson, family members came to Lubbock to extend an "olive branch" to Mychael's family.
"When someone's offended, you go to them, look them in the eye and ask for forgiveness," Williams said.
Williams said she believes a medical exam will confirm Parson's recent miscarriage. The family will also request a psychiatric evaluation, she said.
A call to the public defender assigned to Parson's case was not immediately returned Tuesday. Mychael's family members declined to comment Tuesday, a spokeswoman at Covenant Lakeside Hospital said.
Parson told Clovis police she had taken Mychael from the hospital in Lubbock, court documents show.
A restraining order was issued against Parson in May 2004 in a case involving a boyfriend, and she was charged with fraud in January 2005, according to court documents and a prosecutor.