LAKEWOOD, Wash. — Nearly 22 years ago, KIRO 7 covered the kidnapping of a newborn baby at St. Clare Hospital in Lakewood.
That baby was eventually found unharmed and returned to his parents.
On Thursday, he spoke with KIRO 7 via Skype and admitted with a chuckle that he looks "a lot different" now.
Cpl. Stewart Rembert said he doesn't spend much time thinking about what happened to him when he was just hours old.
"I've lived a relatively normal life, so I don't really have any reason to dwell on the past, but it has occurred to me that from my parents' point of view, this was a devastating ordeal," the now-21-year-old U.S. Marine Corporal said via Skype from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.
Hours after Rembert was born, his mother, Melinda Coen, handed him to a woman who claimed to be a health care worker.
Coen told KIRO 7 at the time the woman "came into my room in the middle of the night, about 1:30, and said she was the nursery nurse and that they were going to take him to the nursery so I could get some sleep. And that was the last time I saw him."
After their son was returned more than 24 hours later, John Rembert said, "I want to thank God for bringing our family back together."
Stewart Rembert was kidnapped and abandoned by Kimberly Skurzewski, who pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 10 years in prison in April of 1998.
Rembert knows his kidnapping helped inspire security changes in many hospital maternity wards.
"From what I've been told by my parents, they did develop a new type of 'bracelet' that newborn babies wear that alerts hospital staff when a baby has been removed.
At the time of Rembert's recovery in late 1997, his parents thanked local police and the FBI for returning their baby boy.
On Friday, Corporal Rembert will meet retiring FBI agent Troy Sowers, who found him in a cardboard box behind a dumpster.
"I'm ecstatic to be able to thank this man for my life right now and being able to proudly wear this uniform," Rembert said of his life and career in the U.S. Marine Corps. "I'm here now, and I hope to give this man a good handshake and a hug from my parents."
To watch KIRO 7's previous reports, watch below.
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