River search suspended for baby, 2 siblings

A woman who phoned St. Joseph's Hospital in North Philadelphia and claimed she had thrown her three children off the Benjamin Franklin Bridge sent authorities into a frantic search early Tuesday.

The woman, who said her name was Shelly or Familia Perez, made the first in a series of calls to St. Joseph's shortly after 3:30 a.m., according to a hospital official.

She said she had given birth a short time earlier and had dropped her newborn into the Delaware River, a U.S. Coast Guard representative said.

Perez later said she also had dropped her 2-year-old and 4-year-old into the river, according to the representative. The crying woman said she was walking down Broadway in Camden.

But authorities, who spent more than eight hours searching the river and attempting to locate the woman, said later Tuesday that they couldn't be certain the calls weren't a hoax or that the woman was who she claimed she was.

Neither the children nor the woman, who authorities believe may be from Philadelphia, was found. The caller gave hospital officials false personal information, according to the Camden County Prosecutor's Office.

The Coast Guard halted the river search, which involved helicopters and boats, shortly after midday.

"It was basically an unconfirmed report that there were people in the water," said Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Stephanie Brennell. After combing 10 square miles, "We didn't locate anybody. . . . We don't have any other information to go off of."

A phone call to 911 from a St. Joseph's nurse around 4 a.m. launched the multi-jurisdictional effort.

The woman told hospital personnel that she had taken a bus from Philadelphia to Camden and thrown her children from the bridge, said Jason Laughlin, spokesman for the Camden County Prosecutor's Office, which was involved in the case with Philadelphia and Camden police. The woman reported that she was staying at a South Jersey motel, he said.

Authorities checked with area hospitals and motels and could not find the woman, Laughlin said. He said police were continuing to investigate the report.

The Ben Franklin Bridge, however, might not have been involved at all, said Ed Kasuba, spokesman for the Delaware River Port Authority, which owns and operates the span.

The authority said security cameras didn't capture images of the incident. Additionally, the gates to the bridge's walkways are locked from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m., Kasuba said.

He said the woman also allegedly mentioned walking to the river from Camden's bus and High Speed Line complex, the Rand Transportation Center.

Peggy Boemmel, chief financial officer at St. Joseph's, said the woman called the hospital a total of three times. Officials couldn't say whether the woman had ever been a patient there.

Boemmel said the first call was taken by an operator, who transferred it to a nurse in the emergency room. The woman told the nurse that she had thrown her baby over the bridge and hung up. The nurse called 911, Boemmel said.

When the woman called back a few minutes later, she was transferred to the hospital's behavioral access center, an intake facility for drug and alcohol patients, Boemmel said.

The woman also told an intake worker about the infant, Boemmel said. The worker called 911 again and, at some point, the woman hung up, she said.

The third time, the woman called and spoke to the same intake worker, who kept the line open for a "couple of hours," Boemmel said.

The woman told hospital personnel that she threw her older children from the bridge because she couldn't afford to feed them, Coast Guard officials said.

Anyone with information about the incident or Perez's whereabouts is asked to contact investigator Peter Longo of the Camden County Prosecutor's Office at 856-225-8400 or the Coast Guard at 215-271-4940.