Marcy Keelin, 38, is under arrest in Nevada, ending a nine-day odyssey.
Sheriff's deputies in Lyon County found Keelin in a motel room. She was with a male companion and 11-month-old Ashton Keelin.
Keelin spoke to Morgan Hill police on Friday and said she would kill herself if she couldn't be with her baby.
She was wanted in connection with a shoplifting incident at a Bay Area Safeway where she left her daughter with a cartful of groceries. She's been dodging authorities ever since.
Keelin is scheduled for an extradition hearing Monday in Nevada.
On Sept. 19 Keelin drove away from the supermarket without her daughter. Around 5 p.m. she apparently filled their cart with groceries, didn't pay, and told her daughter to wait inside the store, near the exit doors, while she got their car. The 10-year-old was supposed to push the cart out of the store as soon as she saw her mom pulling up to the front of the store.
But as the girl started to walk out, Safeway employees stopped her. Police say her mother saw what happened and drove away, leaving the girl to deal with the situation alone. Police said it wasn't the first time Keelin and her daughter shop lifted from the Safeway. They say the same thing happened two weeks prior and that time, it worked. The two were able to get out of the store with their cart full of things like beer and bread.
Police thought Keelin may have been headed to Wyoming with her baby and boyfriend.
The 10 year old isn't charged with a crime and was staying with her grandmother in Morgan Hill.
No one wanted to speak to us at Keelin's mother's house, but longtime neighbor Janet Ohenenyako says Keelin and her children arrived this summer and they were supposed to go back to Wyoming soon.
"The mom told me she is not feeling very well. She is bipolar... so... and she's on medication or something," said Ohenenyako.
We spoke with Keelin's father-in-law in Wyoming by phone Thursday and he said he was not surprised by any of this and that he has reported his daughter-in-law to Child Protective Services in the past.
