N.O. woman accused of kidnapping girl, 2

BELLE ROSE — Assumption Parish sheriff’s deputies arrested a woman accused of abducting a friend’s 2-year-old daughter and taking her to New Orleans.

Paula Cooks, 47, 2803 S. Robinson St., Apt. F, New Orleans, was booked early Sunday with one count of simple kidnapping at the parish Detention Center in Napoleonville, deputies said Monday in a news release.

Cooks was attending a family gathering at the 2-year-old’s home Saturday and abducted her while she was playing in the yard with her 9-year-old sister, deputies said.

Cooks told the 9-year-old her younger sister was going with Cooks to New Orleans and they left in a tan car with an acquaintance of Cooks, deputies said.

Cooks showed up at the New Orleans Police Department’s 6th District Station at 11 p.m. Saturday with an acquaintance who learned the child was taken without permission, deputies said.

Deputies returned Cooks and the child to Assumption Parish. The child was not harmed.

Cooks remained in jail Monday on $10,000 bail, deputies said.

Sheriff Mike Waguespack said a motive for the kidnapping remains under investigation.