Police: Dad smuggled baby out of hospital in plastic bag

GLENDALE, AZ -- Police have charged a man after they say he stole his newborn baby daughter from an Arizona hospital.

Doctors said the baby was born with traces of morphine, marijuana, and methamphetamines in her system. She had been taken to the hospital after she was born at home.

Investigators told KPNX-TV that the parents had hatched a plan to kidnap the baby before the state could take her away from them.

Hospital surveillance video shows Jason Matthew Bristol calmly walking down a hallway with a plastic shopping bag. Inside the bag was his 2-day-old daughter with a blanket over her face. Though the video is silent, maternity-ward alarms, designed to go off when someone takes a baby, were blaring, and the entire ward went into lockdown.

"It's akin to the shoplifting tags that are used by department stores, it's a similar technology," Steve Kaufer with Inter/Action Associates, Inc. told KPNX-TV. "So it sounds like the hospital was equipped with the proper technology and the hospital personnel did the proper things."

Nurses spanned the floor to investigate, but did not find the baby in the bag. One deactivated the alarm with a security card.

Bristol then left the ward through a door and made it all the way home before police caught him.

Bristol told police that he was a meth addict and did not want Child Protective Services taking the child away from him and the mother. He is now charged with child abuse and drug possession.