Savage couple sentenced to 4 years in prison for kidnapping infant
From left: Amanda Wamack and Zachariah Whitehead. (Fayette County, Ky. Detention Center)
A couple from Savage was sentenced to four years in prison after being convicted of kidnapping their infant child and will have to register as predatory offenders.
Zacharia Whitehead, 30, and Amanda Wamack, 31, were sentenced in Scott County Court Tuesday to 48 months (4 years) of prison time after being convicted of kidnapping earlier this year.
Both will get credit for 413 days served, meaning they will serve a sentence of over two years and ten months.
The kidnapping took place in 2023 after White and Wamack brought their child to a hospital emergency room in Scott County with a fractured arm.
The couple said their child was “wiggly” and believed the injury may have occurred while they were trying to change the infant’s clothes.
Hospital staff reported the injury to Scott County Child Protection, who wanted the baby placed in the care of a family member while they conducted tests and interviews to determine how the child got hurt.
White and Wamack reportedly protested and “were very upset” that their child would be placed in someone else’s care. Their arrest warrant also stated the couple were “sovereign citizens” who disagreed with the law.
The child was placed into the care of their grandmother and the parents were barred from staying at the grandmother’s house.
However, on January 17, 2023, Child Protective Services informed the Savage Police Department that neither the grandmother nor the parents of the child were answering their phones.
Police arrived at the grandmother’s house and learned she had willingly given the child back to their parents the day before, stating she had “rescinded” her role as a caregiver “as she did not agree with it,” according to the warrant.
The parents were later tracked down to a house in Lexington, Kentucky, where a six-hour standoff ensued before the couple were coaxed outside and surrendered.
In addition to their prison sentence, Whitehead and Wamack will have to register as predatory offenders, and pay fines.