Woman arrested after toddler found safe

Jasmine's parents Marcella Anderson and Greg Knowles attend a press conference after their daughter was found.

CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) -- A 16-month-old girl allegedly abducted from a Greyhound bus station here on Christmas Eve was found safe late Thursday afternoon in West Virginia, law enforcement officials in Chicago said.

Jasmine Anderson was found around 4 p.m. ET in Williamson, West Virginia, the officials said. Williamson is in the southwestern part of the state, near Kentucky.

Authorities at the scene arrested Sheila Matthews, 33, and charged her with one count of federal kidnapping, FBI Special Agent Tom Kneir said at a Thursday evening press conference.

Matthews told her boyfriend she had a baby while he was in prison, saying the child was in Chicago with her mother, said Chicago Chief of Detectives Philip Cline.

VIDEO Jasmine Anderson was found safe in West Virginia after allegedly being abducted from her mother at a Chicago bus station Christmas Eve. CNN's Jeff Flock reports (December 27) Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)

After abducting Jasmine, Cline said, Matthews tried to pass the child off as her own during a visit with family in Broadview, Illinois, about 10 miles west of Chicago.

Matthews and her boyfriend, who authorities do not believe knew of the abduction, drove to Williamson Wednesday night, Cline said.

Matthews' family members called police Thursday morning, giving them a coat later identified as Jasmine's and telling them the couple and baby had left for West Virginia, Cline said.

FBI agents in both states, West Virginia state police and local law officers worked together to find the baby and arrest Matthews at a house in Williamson. The child was at a West Virginia hospital and doing well, Kneir said.

"I'm relieved knowing the baby is back and relieved that [the suspect] is behind bars," said Marcella Anderson, Jasmine's mother.

'I shouldn't have trusted her'

The breakthrough came three days after Anderson said she handed Jasmine to a stranger while she cashed in her bus ticket.

Anderson, 21, told police she, Jasmine and her 3-year-old daughter Alicia had flown to Chicago from St. Louis, Missouri, and planned to take a bus to their hometown of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

At a news conference Wednesday, Anderson said it was her first time traveling alone with the children and she "needed help."

A stranger befriended Anderson, saying her name was Christine and she was waiting for her daughter, who was coming home from college. "Christine" told the young mother that she, too, was from Milwaukee and offered the family a ride.

Anderson accepted, handing the stranger Jasmine while she got in line to cash in the bus tickets. When she looked back, she saw the woman disappearing into the crowd with her daughter.

"I called out to her and said to bring Jasmine back and I would hold onto her," Anderson told CNN. "She said her daughter had just got off the bus, she was going to go get her and come right back."

"I probably should have said no," Anderson said. "She just didn't seem like she could take a baby."

Anderson told detectives the alleged abductor had bleached blonde hair and a tattoo on her neck.

Witnesses corroborated Anderson's story and the description.

"I was thinking there was somebody there to help me," Anderson said. "I was stressed over the flight and the whole trip was long.

"I shouldn't have trusted her. It was wrong, I've realized it now. But she was there, she was friendly, she was warm, someone I thought I could trust."

"This woman was very convincing, just like many kidnappers are very convincing and very disarming," said John Walsh of the television show "America's Most Wanted."

Anderson "let her guard down for a minute and this woman got away with her child," said Walsh, whose own son Adam was kidnapped from a Florida department store in 1981 and later found dead.