She faked her pregnancy and then kidnapped her newborn nephew

A desperate family.

A missing five-day old baby.

A heartbreaking plea seen on every news network across the nation “ I just want my baby back.”

In a disturbing case in the US a five-day old baby, Kayden Powell, went missing last week. The newborn simply vanished from his room when his mother checked him 4.30am on Thursday.

His frantic family alerted the authorities. Police started searching Wisconsin, Illinois and Iowa and the national media went into a frenzy.

Suspicion started to fall upon the family as his mother Brianna Marshall, 18, and his father Bruce Powell, 23, had been sleeping in same room as him at a home in the town of Beloit, Wisconsin.

Questions began to be asked, ” How could they not notice someone enter the room?” “How did they not hear something”?

But police maintained the family were not under suspicion.

Then a day later  – a breakthrough – an FBI officer heard crying whilst he was searching an area around a petrol station – and the baby was found wrapped in blankets, in a plastic storage crate outside a petrol station.

The outside temperature was well below zero.

He was 320km away from his home.

Miraculously despite the freezing temperatures the baby was alive.

Then came the twist – as Police arrested the baby’s Aunt, Kristen Smith, for kidnapping and charged her with federal kidnapping charges.

The Aunt – believed to be a half sister to Brianna Marshall – had been in the same house as the family and had left around 1.30am to drive back to Colorado.

After Kayden was discovered missing the family called Kristen Smith whilst she was on the road and asked her to stop her car and speak to Officers.

She pulled to the side of the road and a Police car nearby arrested her on an outstanding fraud warrant.

The baby was not with her.

She told Police that Brianna, Bruce and baby Kayden were soon moving to Colorado to live with her- and denied having anything to do with his disappearance.

Police began searching the area and that’s when the newborn was found.

Later, in custody she admitted taking him.

Astoundingly Police allege that they found evidence the Aunt had been faking her own pregnancy for the last nine moments.

Her Facebook page was filled with references to her being pregnant, a prosthetic ‘pregnancy’ belly was in her car.

A pram for a newborn was discovered in the boot of the car.

A further search uncovered mobile phone messages and emails filled with congratulatory messages of the ‘birth’ of her new baby – which she allegedly said had taken place just days before on February the 5th.

The Chicago Tribune reports that Smith was given a pregnancy test and a medical examination by Police Doctors.

She was not – nor had been pregnant.

Charges were laid and a desperate family were reunited with their six-day old baby.

Smith now faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted.

But many, many questions still remain unanswered.