The Many Uses of Duct Tape: Mom Duct Tapes Baby Girl To Chair

Mom Arrested For Duct-Taping Baby Daughter
Woman collared after image of child appears online

FEBRUARY 17--A Pennsylvania woman is facing a child endangerment charge after a photo emerged online showing her posing next to her child, who was duct-taped to a chair, with tape over her mouth.

While the image appeared last week on mediatakeout.com, the site blurred out the faces of the smiling woman and the bound child, leaving them virtually unidentifiable to law enforcement.

That is until suspect Caira Ferguson, 21, who is not especially well endowed mentally, approached police herself. She claimed that whoever the person was who leaked the photo--a copy of which she actually gave to cops--was also guilty of stealing her identity. Caira was unclear why someone would want to steal her identity only to be charged with a felony crime. But Caira felt that if anyone had to go to jail over the incident it should be the individual who had stolen her identity.

Investigators believe that Ferguson concocted the identity theft story in a misguided effort to somehow protect herself. (Duh! That was a hard one.) Ferguson, pictured above left, apparently also failed to consider the possibility that the photo itself could be used as evidence of a crime. When investigators pointed this out to her, Caira, said she wanted to see her own "mommy" but couldn't remember her name.

A subsequent police investigation determined that the photo was taken about six months ago, when Ferguson’s diapered daughter was 18 months old. A search warrant was executed at Fergsuon’s Chester Township residence, where cops recovered the purple chair seen in the photo. “The chair was found to still have remnants of duct tape affixed to the arms and legs,” police noted.

In a recorded interview, Ferguson later admitted to taping her daughter to the chair and taping her mouth shut last July so she would sit still and stop bothering the neighbors with her crying. Her cooperation with authorities netted her changes for child endangerment, false imprisonment, and unlawful restraint.

Fergusuon was booked into the Delaware County jail where she is being held without bond. At the hearing she requested to be released under her own recognizance so she could take care of her baby daughter. The judge declined her request, without explanation.