Debra "Debbie" Elkins is a hostage-taker and con artist responsible for holding her infant child captive from three different higher-class couples looking for openly adopting Elkins' baby, whom she lied about saying was conceived from rape.
Elkins gave birth to the baby in a hotel room; afterwards, she was whisked to a hospital in a cab due to hemorrhaging from the aggressive birth. She woke up with partial amnesia, but remembered her baby and frantically demanded the police to find them.
Elkins' boyfriend, Stephen J. Shaw was found with the child, and from there, the cons were revealed. Grounds of grand larceny were difficult to charge, especially when one couple testified in her defense after being given her baby. However, when the couple revealed Shaw extorted them for the sake of them not challenging the adoption under blackmail, that was plenty grounds for added charges.
With the new testimony provided by Shaw to take a deal of no jail, Elkins finally snapped and tried to defend her sense of entitlement to conning rich couples out of believing she deserved the money they had, after her daughter was taken away by Child Services in Poughkeepsie. From there, her lawyer accepted a deal of four to twelve years in prison. (L&O: "Breeder")