Left: Michael Garrison Raine (Bonneville County Sheriff”s Office). Right: Surveillance video footage from the Costco warehouse in Idaho Falls, Idaho (Bonneville County Prosecutor’s Office via East Idaho News).
In a surprising turn of events, an Idaho college student who was accused of attempting to kidnap a baby at Costco has seen the charges against him dropped.
Michael Garrison Raine, aged 24, faced arrest last November on second-degree kidnapping charges after authorities claimed he took a shopping cart with a four-week-old infant and walked away. The incident, which occurred on November 20 at a Costco in Idaho Falls, was recorded by the store’s surveillance cameras.
In a Thursday press conference, Bonneville County Prosecutor Randy Neal and Idaho Falls Police Chief Bryce Johnson explained that the decision to dismiss charges was based on reviewing the surveillance video. They stated the footage did not align with the mother’s account of the event.
As previously covered by Law&Crime, both Raine, a student at Brigham Young University – Idaho, and the baby’s mother were in the Costco book aisle simultaneously. The mother reported to police that Raine appeared to be “lingering” near her and the cart, which held her baby in a car seat. She briefly turned away, and upon looking back, found the cart missing.
Authorities reported that she found her child and the cart just one aisle over with Raine. When questioned, Raine explained to Idaho Falls Police detectives that it was an honest mistake, thinking he had taken his own empty cart. He approached the woman to apologize, telling detectives, “I was just so oblivious,” and admitting, “I really must have been completely out of it.”
Raine was tracked down by Idaho Falls Police detectives and told them that he took the cart by mistake, thinking he was walking away with his own empty cart. He told police he walked back to the woman to apologize to her, telling detectives, “I was just so oblivious,” adding, “I really must have been completely out of it.”
At Thursday’s press conference, Neal said that after reviewing the full surveillance video provided by Costco, detectives “did not see any kind of stalking behavior” by Raine. Authorities were also able to see that Raine walked up the aisle with his own cart, which was not seen on the initial cellphone video of the surveillance video that they were provided.
Neal explained that as part of the police investigation, detectives recreated the scene at the Costco with the woman after viewing the surveillance footage. When she went through the events as she remembered them, Neal said, “It was clear, early on, that some of the things that the mother was remembering [weren’t] correct, according to the video.” He added, “Some of her memories were inaccurate.”
“We have a fairly definitive narrative now of what happened after he turned that corner. It’s grainy, it’s not a perfect view. But it certainly seems inconsistent with an intent to take the baby and leave the area,” Neal said.
