Thursday 8 September 2022 08:31 PM Woman tried to kidnap baby from Texas Walmart Ex-Husband says former spouse 'is ... trends now
The Texas woman who tried to kidnap a four-year-old at Walmart this week is the notorious 'cancer bride' who faked having leukemia in order to get her 'dream wedding,' and Caribbean honeymoon — free of charge 10 years ago.
'You have my 110% guarantee that this is the same woman,' Michael O'Connell, 37, the ex-husband of Jessica Vega, 35, told DailyMail.com exclusively.
O' Connell said he wasn't surprised Vega was still up to her old tricks - a decade later. 'It's just another evil heinous act. She's really a sick, twisted individual.'
Vega lied to strangers — and her own husband — about having terminal cancer, conning them out of over $13,000 to pay for her wedding and honeymoon in 2012.
Vega was charged with attempted kidnapping and was booked in Brexar County Jail on a bond of $50,000 on Monday. She bonded out the very next day and is now on house arrest, KSAT News reported.
'I think its disgusting she was allowed out,' O'Connell said. 'That bond was too low.'
Jessica Vega, 35, pictured left after her Monday arrest, has been charged with attempted kidnapping. Vega grabbed the shopping cart the 4-year-old girl was sitting in and started walking away. Once the girl's mother realized what was happening she began screaming in horror and witnesses rushed to help
Jessica Vega pictured walking down the aisle with a family friend at her May 2010 wedding. It was later revealed that the wedding, paid for by strangers because the bride claimed to have terminal cancer, was a con. Vega, now 35, is the same woman who tried to kidnap baby from Texas Walmart this week
Vega's ex-husband Michael O'Connell said he thinks 'its disgusting she was allowed out' after the attempted kidnapping. 'That bond was too low.' He said he endured years of mental, physical and psychological abuse by his former wife
In addition to lying about having leukemia, Vega also falsely told O'Connell that he was the father of her second child — who was actually fathered by another man — as well as an alleged hit out on her own dad.
Regarding Vega's recent arrest, O'Connell remarked: 'Congratulations! Everything finally caught up with you. Karma is real.'
Before Vega tried to walk away with a child at the Walmart on Potranco Road in San Antonio on Monday, she went to two other Walmart stores in the area and a high school, an anonymous source told DailyMail.com.
'She was walking in front of a High School when someone spotted her,' he said. ' She was at the neighborhood Wal-Mart when she was confronted by an employee who noticed she was following a mother and her 2yr old daughter. When asked if she needed help, she walked out the store.'
The attempted abduction happened on Monday at the Walmart on Potraco Road in San Antonio, Texas (pictured) when the mother, whose name was not released, was shopping in the store's aisles with her two daughters
In early August, a few weeks before Monday's attempted abduction, Vega had a manic episode in a Starbucks in San Antonio. When the police arrived, her three children, who were with her at the time, were taken away and she was placed in a mental hospital for 72 hours, according to O'Connell.
O'Connell now lives in Colorado and has since remarried and is a father of two young children. He told DailyMail.com that it took him a long time to get his life back after he endured years of mental, physical and psychological abuse from Vega.
The last time he saw the mother of his first child was six years ago, but she reached back out to him about a year ago. O'Connell says he blocked her number.
'There was so much s**t that happened during our relationship and the chaos hasn't stopped.'
Regrets? Jessica Vega defrauded family and friends and was facing up to 24 years in jail
He first met Vega in 2008 when they were students at the Institute for Culinary Education in Manhattan's Flatiron district.
He described it as 'love at first lust' — unaware of the web of lies and deceit he was about to encounter.
A year later, Vega was pregnant with their first child, a daughter whose name he did not want to release.
After the birth of their daughter he said her behavior became erratic. 'She was more argumentative, paranoid, violent and accused me of cheating on her when I wasn't, and narcissistic.'
Their fighting escalated. 'She would throw objects at me. One time she threw a cordless phone at my head, bruised my ribs with a vacuum, punched me in the face and head. '
He recalled the time Vega tried to get him arrested.
[She] 'beat the crap out of herself,' O'Connell then called the police trying to make it appear as if she was a victim of domestic violence. The couple were living in Yonkers, New York at the time.
'I woke up to nine Yonkers police officers pointing their guns at me. I think what saved me was that I was sleeping and the cops woke me up when she let them into the apartment.'
O'Connell said he was brought down to the police headquarters but was later released on his own recognizance.
'She had bruises on her arms, legs and face. You can't have an a** whooping like that without having some marks on you. My hands weren't swollen. I didn't have a black eye. Clearly, the cops knew I had nothing to do with it.'
When Vega got pregnant for a second time, O'Connell found out the baby she was carrying wasn't his. 'She lied about that too,' he said. 'She trapped me. I thought she was pregnant with our son. She made believe it was mine. To this day no one knows who the child's father is.'
A DNA test later proved that O'Connell was not the baby's father. He stayed in the child's life for two years because he knew this baby would not have a father.
The relationship took another dramatic turn when
