The Knock | Criminal Podcast | Forensic Files

He could have been born on Christmas. I'd been terrified that was going to happen.
>> In 2017, Lauren Allen and her husband were expecting their first child. The baby was due on December 13th. Why? Why
were you terrified he was going to come on Christmas? >> Oh, just, you know, people always um
well, my mother was born um December 30th, and so she'd always like, you know, lamented that. Um, and I knew
someone else who'd been born on the 26th and just that whole thing. >> It's kind of a bummer, isn't it, to have
your birthday on Christmas or even the day after is almost worse because what are people going to get you? Two
presents. You kind of get robbed. >> Yeah. Yeah. And my mom had always felt that way. And I worked at the county
library at the time. And so whenever I'd come across somebody who had um a birthday crow to Christmas, I'd say,
"I'm due December 13th." you know, I'm in the two week window where it could be Christmas. Like, what did your family
do? Uh, mostly it was about they'd say wrapping paper. Um, have happy birthday wrapping paper instead of Christmas. I
was just trying to arm myself with details about how to make a Christmas birthday special. Um, and then surprise,
he was very early. On November 8th, 5 weeks before her due date, Laura had a bad headache that
wouldn't go away. She eventually went to the hospital and ended up having an emergency C-section.
She had a son. >> He did great. He was only in the NICU for a few days, but um it was a very
intense introduction um to motherhood. >> About 7 weeks later on Christmas morning, they were at home in St. Louis
preparing to go to Laura's mother's house. My mother had wanted us to um arrive by 10:00 a.m. and I'd put my foot
down and said, "I can do 11." Um she was just so excited about her first grandchild and my sister was uh bringing
the man she was eventually going to marry and so it was just a very important Christmas and mom was, you
know, all a flutter about it and she'd wanted us to be there super early and I'd said it's got to be at least 11:00.
And had Christmas always been a big thing in your family? Oh, my mom loves Christmas. It's a very big deal for her.
Um, every year it's a big deal, but this year was particularly a big deal. And my
dad's an Episcopal priest, so um there's also a religious element for my family.
Um there were also going to be um one of my friends from college had strangely gotten a job working with my mom and
like they'd become friends and uh his family was going to be out of town that year and so she'd invited him. So there
was a lot of good things, you know, waiting for us that we were excited about. Laura's parents house was a 30inut drive
away. Before getting in the car that morning, Laura was in her living room feeding her son, Percy.
And tell me a little bit about Percy. That's not a name you hear every day. I always um note unusual names, and if I
hear one I've never heard before, I look it up. So, when I was pregnant, um I had
a list. I think I probably had about a hundred names that we had to narrow down to. Um Percy is short for Perl, which
means pierce the veil. Um, and we decided on that because, uh, with the emergency C-section, piercing the veil,
um, is kind of a old English idea of like moving from, um, this world to the next. And so that's how he'd come into
our world. So then, uh, yeah, we like that it had lots of nickname options. Um, and for now, we've landed on Percy,
but sometimes I joke about him going to law school and going by civil. He was very sweet. He had just a very
sweet, quiet, um, obliging temperament. So, I mostly just remember that morning before everything that happened, just
um, sitting with him and him just being very sweet and quiet and cuddly. And it had been um, super icy, like one of
those winters where it would snow a ton and then um, the sun would come out and melt it just enough so that when the sun
went back down, it froze. So there was ice everywhere. I think the temperature was in the teens.
And you know, we get freezing um weather here pretty regularly, but like in the low teens, that's maybe like once or
twice a year that that would happen. We rarely have white Christmases. And so it
was a little romantic like, "Oh, Percy's first Christmas." So tell me what happened that morning.
I was uh had just finished feeding Percy and we had these stairs in front of um our apartment. We were on a our building
was on a steep hill and there was a flight of stairs and then a bit of a landing and then another flight of
stairs just to get to our porch. And I heard someone running um up the stairs and the stairs were incredibly
icy. The whole city had been shut down because of um the ice. And so when I heard the running, I thought, "That's
crazy." And then just a frantic knocking on the door. Um, and I thought, "Oh, it
must be a package." You know, this person must be running so late. Everyone's packages uh had been running
late. Um, and they're working, you know, for extra hours on Christmas. Um, and they're just trying to get through the
route and they're just in a panic. So, I called through my husband to go get, you know, whatever had just been
delivered. >> Laura's husband, Rob, went to open the door >> and he came back and he said, "There's a
kid outside." And I said, "Like a teenager playing a prank." >> Laura says her husband looks stunned.
And he said, "No, like a baby." The baby was in its car seat on their porch. There is no one else around.
I'm Phoebe Judge. This is criminal. Laura says her first thought was, "This is some kind of a mixup.
They lived on the first floor of a twounit brick house." >> And I said, "Well, it's got to be
somebody's. Maybe uh the guy who lives above us has a kid we didn't know about and you know his girl ex-girlfriend just
dropped it off. >> Rob went outside and started walking around to see if he could find anyone.
>> And he was gone for a few minutes and he came back and he said, "There is nobody
out there." And I knocked on the neighbor's door and nobody answered. So I'm bringing the baby inside cuz it's
freezing. And I don't know what I thought in that moment. Uh I trusted my husband's um
judgment, but it was hard to believe like really there's no one out there. Um and so I came into the front room and
I saw um the carrier with the baby in it and um it was really just so surreal. Um he
looked at me and he started crying and I rushed to him. Um and you know I knew how to do the snaps from my own baby and
so I was able to get him out but you know he was securely in there so he was completely strapped into his car seat.
>> Yeah. >> Buttoned up. >> Buttoned up. He had um it wasn't you know you can't put babies in car
seats with really puffy coats uh anymore. you got to have like a thick sweater or something so that they can't
like slide out and the seat belt can um grip on them. So, it was it was the appropriate uh kind of jacket
like he had been dressed really warmly. It was obvious. Um, you know, the thing that helped me um cope in the
first few weeks of parenthood was to kind of um break it down to a to-do list of you got to make sure the baby is
clean, fed, and loved. And that's really everything will fall under that umbrella
and just this baby was clearly clean, fed, and loved. And so I picked him up and I was trying to
um comfort him and I just said the first thing I was thinking was somebody loves
you. Somebody dressed you up all warm and put you in this car seat and I don't know
why you're here or what's happened but you're safe and and he stopped crying. We'll be right back. To listen without
ads, join Criminal Plus. I mean, what what did you think had had gone on here? I had no idea. Like I'd said, my first
thought had been maybe um there someone had been doing a custody um exchange with a parent and there had been a
mixup. So in those minutes you're thinking this is a custody battle. I mean I I'm just trying to think of what
I would think. >> What I kept saying to the baby is I think there's been some kind of mistake.
As was just bouncing upon my hip. I'd say I think there was a mistake but we're going to get you back to the
people who love you. I mean, but but mistake like an Amazon package got delivered. I mean, I just am trying to I
mean, it's a big mistake. Yeah. You know, and I thought like I got hugely angry because I was like, if you thought
you were dropping this baby off somewhere with people who, you know, were expecting a baby to be there,
you should have made sure that they were there and they could like and I became furious um with whoever this mystery,
you know, person was. >> It's freezing cold outside. >> It's absolutely freezing cold outside.
It was dangerous to have left a baby like this. >> Laura says she kept thinking, "What if
they had already left for her mother's house and there had been no one home to open the door that morning?" But then,
as I was, you know, holding the baby and thinking, "Somebody loves this baby. I can tell by how they're cared for," I
became afraid that something had happened to that person. Um, and I did say to the baby, um, you know, I think
there's somebody who loves you and we're going to try to find that person and get
them back to you. Um, and if something's happened to that person, I bet they have
somebody who loves them who will take care of you and it'll be okay. And I don't know, it it felt like he
understood. I know that sounds silly. >> Laura's husband called 911. He said, "Someone left a baby on our porch." Uh,
like the whole thing had question marks behind it. And he said, um, that the woman on the other line shouted, "We got
a baby." So, they'd obviously been waiting for some kind of call. And so when he told me that, that kind of sent
a kind of a clue that they were aware um that something had happened. >> Rob and Laura were told that the police
were on their way to their house. Laura says she was surprised by how fast they got there. Just a few minutes.
I heard the knock on the door and my my husband um went to answer the door and for some reason he'd picked up our baby
and I was thinking, "Oh no." No. I said, "Um, hold on." And I, um, I stepped forward
um with the baby who'd been dropped off and I'd said, "This is the baby. That's my baby." And pointed to my baby.
>> There were several officers from the St. Louis police in front of their house.
And a couple of police cars were parked in the street >> and I saw there was a woman standing
down at the bottom um in the street. And again, we had um a short flight of stairs from the sidewalk, a bit of
landing, and then another flight of stairs to get up to our apartment. A police officer standing at Laura's front
door shouted down to the woman, >> and she said, "Ma'am, is this your baby?" >> Laura says she remembers the woman,
shouting, "Yes." I have no memory at all of her coming to me. And then she's just there. And she
she couldn't have levitated or just appeared. She had to have run up those icy steps. And as I handed it to her, I
said, "He's okay." And she only had eyes for him. And she took him from me and she just
crumpled over him. And um I don't remember her leaving. Um someone must have escorted her down the
icy steps again and into the car and then they were just gone. And um they were gone.
I was on the day shift, so I would have started around 7:00 a.m. >> Police Officer Austin King was in his
patrol car with his partner on Christmas morning. He had just graduated from the
police academy in January that year and was still pretty new on the job. When you're a young police officer, does it
mean that, you know, you you work Christmas because, you know, you don't have any seniority,
>> right? Yeah, that's that's usually how it goes. the uh the officers with seniority usually gobble up the uh
vacation days for Christmas earlier that year. That's definitely something you can expect.
>> He says it was a pretty quiet day of patrolling. Christmas Day usually is >> a few traffic accidents here and there.
It's a very a lot of uh vehicles, a lot of lot of people driving in that area, but just a few here and there, minor
calls, couple different sunundry calls. It was relatively quiet. >> But then a few hours into their shift, a
call came in over their police radio. It sounded very different from the other calls they had received that morning.
A woman had called 911. Her car had just been stolen. >> So, dispatch uh told us that the
caller's uh infant son was uh in the back seat when the car was stolen. Uh and so we knew we had something very
serious going on. Austin King and his partner were about a mile north of where the woman was
calling from. >> We went lights and sirens down there. Uh talked with the the victim uh the the
mom who told us what happened. She was of course very distraught. Um we were relatively I think the same age if I
recall. Obviously we tried to be as empathetic as we could. There's only so much you can say to a person or a parent
in that moment. Uh, and she was obviously understandably very distraught. >> The baby's mother lived just a few
blocks from Laura's house. She had left her house with her six-month-old son when she realized that
she'd forgotten to lock the front door. She went back up the stairs to her house
to lock it. She left her son in his car seat. The car was still running. Then with her back turned, she said she
heard a car door slam and turned around and saw someone in the front seat of her
car driving off. She ran after the car, then called the police. She told the news reporter, "It replays
in my head over and over. All I can hear is the tire screeching and seeing the back of my car.
>> We need to locate this car as quickly as possible. we need to recover this child
uh before too much time because as time progresses the the lesser likelihood of being successful as uh law enforcement
goes down, right? The woman knew her license plate number, which was incredibly useful. Most people don't
know their uh their license plate number. They usually don't have that memorized, but she did, which was very
helpful. So, we put out the the make, model, color, uh license plate over the radio. a lot of officers uh from the
second district and the third district nearby. It was a near a neighboring district came because they heard the
call come out. And even though it wasn't their district, they came over to help because they knew it was serious.
>> After driving just a couple of blocks, the person who had stolen the car stopped at Laura's house where he ran up
the stairs, put down the baby, and knocked on the door, then got back in the car and drove away. Just shortly
after we put out the description of the vehicle, uh, dispatch told us that they had just received a call um that someone
had left a baby in a car seat on their front porch. And we obviously immediately knew, hey, this is probably
going to be our baby, right? >> They told the baby's mother they might have found her son.
>> To relax her nerves a little bit and say, hey, there was a someone just called. It sounds like your kid might be
okay. They've got just a few blocks down. We're going to take you over to him. Uh, she got into the back of our
car. We took her over there. >> Meanwhile, another police officer happened to spot the stolen car. The
license plate and description matched. The officer did a U-turn and chased the car. Other police officers joined. The
suspect got out on foot, stopped the car somewhere, got out on foot, ran on foot,
and we had some officers uh catching the suspect after jumping a few fences through some backyards.
Laura and her husband learned about what had happened and about how the suspect had already been arrested from a police
officer who stayed behind when everyone else left. >> And I was still so furious um at the
person, whoever had done this. Um, and I had to ask. I was like, "What kind of monster did this?"
>> But then Laura says she was told that the person who had stolen the car was a
teenage boy. She says she remembers hearing that he was in foster care. >> And I asked the police officer, "He was
wandering alone on Christmas. My whole preconceived notion was shattered. You know, this wasn't
someone um this wasn't an adult who had made a decision to put a child at risk. This
was a child who had done something stupid. And all that anger I'd had just vanished.
So, this kid had stolen this car probably having no idea that a baby was in the back seat. That's what I
always imagined was that when he was driving off with the car um and then he heard the cry of the baby in the back
seat that he was so panicked when he ran up the icy stairs and the way he banged
on the door. Like I feel like he realized the gravity of the situation. Laura says she's often thought about the
footsteps and the knock on the door she heard that morning and how it seemed too
frantic for a delivery person. She says she can still play back the sound of the
door knock in her head. Later, Laura thought about how their porch was not the most convenient choice
for the teenage boy. Since they lived on a hill, he had to run up two sets of stairs to get to the porch.
She wondered if maybe the teenage boy lived in the neighborhood and knew that they had a child. One of their windows
had been open. Laura says maybe there's a chance he saw it and realized they were at home.
I can't I can't deny the fact it was still so reckless, but I just it seeing the mother's trauma
and it probably still haunts her today sometimes. Um, and I never want to speak down to that trauma, but I just
feel like there were two boys who were lost. Um, and my thought was the kid realized what
he had done, you know, and tried tried to do the right thing. We'll be right back.
Months later, Laura Nan and her husband were at the teenage boy's court hearing.
Laura's husband had to testify about finding the baby and calling 911. Laura remembers that a judge had decided
that the boy would be tried as a juvenile. In Missouri, children under 18 are generally considered juveniles, but
they can be tried as adults if a judge decides that the case is serious. Laura says she remembers that the
teenage boy was sent to a juvenile detention center. And Laura says they never learned the boy's name, but she
saw him briefly when he walked by the waiting room where she was sitting. >> He was about as tall as, you know,
he looked like a 14year-old. Um, even just seeing him from behind, you know, maybe 15, but you know, this wasn't a
6-ft teenager. This was very obviously a child. If I could, I would look up and uh find out how I was doing. And I wish
I could say to him like, "Hey, I'm glad you tried to do the right thing. What what was the rest of that Christmas
like? What did you do? >> Well, I had to call my mom and uh tell her that we were going to be late. And I
said, "I promise you we have a good enough excuse." And she did not believe me that that no matter what it was that
it was going to be a good enough excuse for being late. And you know, she was expecting, oh, the baby had spit up and
we needed an outfit change. and that wasn't going to be acceptable. So when we said a baby was on our porch,
no one believed us at first, but we had to repeat it. And then it was a surprisingly short story.
The baby had come, the baby had gone, and now we're here. and Laura's sister's new partner was
there meeting the family for the first time, listening to the story. >> Mouth hanging open, not uh believing it,
but then having to believe it because we were saying, "Nope, it's true. It happened."
>> What an introduction. >> Yes. Well, he's never surprised by anything that happens to me now. But it
was a good rest of the Christmas. Um, it was my first Christmas as a mom and so we had multiple Santa outfits to make
way, you know, make through in the day. >> What do you mean multiple Santa outfits?
>> Well, when you have a new baby at Christmas, everybody gives you Santa outfits and you have to put them all on
and take a picture and then post that one so they know that you appreciated the outfit. Do they come with beards for
babies? None of the ones that I received did. You might have an Etsy product idea
there. Um, I do have a favorite picture uh of him sitting in my lap on Christmas
morning um in a big wing back chair at my mother's house and I look very peaceful and happy. I mean, you must
have been thinking, "What the hell just happened?" Yeah. No. And it was one of those things where you kind of felt the
need to keep telling the story to make sure it was real, the whirlwind of it. That night when they were in the car on
their way home, Laura tried to write down what had happened that day. She says it was hard to put it all into
words. She posted what she'd written on Facebook. The next day, she got a message from the
baby's mother, who had read Laura's post. She told Laura how scared she'd been that morning and thanked her for taking
care of her baby. The baby's grandmother also wrote to Laura saying, "Thank you for keeping my grandson warm."
Is it changed Christmas a little bit now? >> Well, every year, uh, we tease Percy
that for 20 minutes he had an older brother. Um, and he, you know, to him it's kind
of a funny story. I'm not sure he he's seven now. I'm not sure he entirely believes it. He might think we're
teasing him cuz it does sound so unreal, but I'll be thinking about it every year for the
rest of my life. I'll be thinking about the baby, hoping he's somewhere out there being happy and loved. Um,
I know that he has a sibling now. Um, I know he's doing well and I'll be thinking about the other boy and hoping
he has somebody who's loving him and helping him. >> Well, um, I want to I want to thank you
very much for taking the time to tell the story. >> I appreciate the chance to talk about it
and uh I hope you have a good Christmas. >> Oh, I I love Christmas. So, you too get
ready for We'll both get ready for Christmas. >> We'll get ready for Christmas. Criminal is created by Lauren Spore and
me. Nidia Wilson is our senior producer. Katie Bishop is our supervising producer. Our producers are Susanna
Robertson, Jackie Sajiko, Lily Clark, Lena Sillison, and Megan Canain. Our engineer is Veronica Simonetti.
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I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.

On Christmas morning, Laura Nowlin was in her living room with her infant son. They were getting ready to leave to spend the day with family. Then, Laura heard a knock on the door. She says it sounded frantic.

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Episode 344 originally published December 12, 2025. https://thisiscriminal.com/episode-344-the-knock-12-12-2025/

Music in this episode: “Careless Morning” by Blue Dot Sessions “Kamilah” by Blue Dot Sessions “Two Dollar Token ” by Blue Dot Sessions “Arbic Tallow” by Blue Dot Sessions “Kovd” by Blue Dot Sessions “Denzel Sprak” by Blue Dot Sessions “Vdet” by Blue Dot Sessions “Gra Hovedvei” by Blue Dot Sessions “Our Minds Following ” by Blue Dot Sessions “Lick Stick” by Blue Dot Sessions “Town Market” by Blue Dot Sessions

Brief Summary

A mother finds a baby on her porch after a car theft on Christmas morning, leading to unexpected emotional revelations.

Key points

A Christmas Surprise. Laura finds a baby on her porch on Christmas morning, leading to a frantic situation.
The Stolen Car. A mother realizes her car was stolen with her baby inside, prompting a police response.
The Court Hearing. Months later, Laura attends the teenage boy's court hearing, reflecting on the incident.
A Christmas Surprise. A baby unexpectedly appears on their porch, leading to a memorable Christmas story.
The Impact of Kindness. Laura receives heartfelt messages from the baby's family, expressing gratitude for her care.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Somebody loves you.

Laura comforts the baby she found on her porch.

8:50WatchJul 10, 2026

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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