Sean Holstege

The Republic | azcentral.com

The case of missing Baby Gabriel gripped the Valley for three years, until his mother, Elizabeth Johnson, was sentenced to prison in late 2012.

Johnson was released from a state prison near Goodyear shortly after 12 a.m. Friday, but Gabriel's whereabouts remain a nagging mystery.

Johnson was convicted of unlawful imprisonment, custodial interference and conspiracy to commit custodial interference, but not of kidnapping. Instead of facing nearly 28 years behind bars, she was sentenced to five years, three months. With the time she served awaiting trial and good behavior, Johnson was freed today.

"Justice was served here. Elizabeth was convicted of exactly the crimes she committed. She's served her sentence and now faces four years' probation," Johnson's attorney Marc Victor said.

His client sees the shorter sentence as "a second lease on life."

"Elizabeth has matured since the day I met her. She has ambitions to help single moms in crisis," Victor said.

But in the court of public opinion, he recognizes, his client has angered people, who demonized her as a suspected baby-killer.

"What's least understood about Elizabeth is that at all times she acted in what she believed was Gabriel's best interests. There was a ton of information we didn't bring out that showed she loved Gabriel at all times," Victor said, explaining that she was an immature woman who "freaked out" at a frustrating situation.

She felt badly for Gabriel's father, Logan McQueary, who'd lost his son. McQueary has had no contact with Johnson since she went to Perryville prison.

The case had all the ingredients to make it a national news sensation: An adorable eight-month-old boy. An attractive mother, then 25, who wanted a new life. A photogenic father, then 27, who just wanted his son. A custody battle. A damning text from her to him admitting murder. A different story to investigators. A mystery adoption at a park two states away. A middle-aged Valley couple that offered to give Baby Gabriel a home, but were seen by authorities as meddling. Another tangled custody claim.

The last time McQueary saw his son was December 2009. Then he and Johnson had an argument. She left their Tempe home, taking baby Gabriel, and fled to Florida.

Two days after Christmas, Johnson texted McQueary: "I killed him. You made me do it."

She described suffocating the baby and dumping him in the trash.

But after her arrest, she changed her story. Now she said she had given Gabriel to a couple in a park in San Antonio. Johnson never identified the pair and never veered from the story.

Investigators there searched dumpsters, landfills and parks to no avail.

Along the way, Tammi Smith of Scottsdale emerged with a story that she'd met Johnson in an airport six months before baby Gabriel's disappearance and asked her if she wanted to put Gabriel up for adoption. When she said yes, Tammi, then 40, and her husband Jack Smith approached McQueary with custody papers and an offer to pay $1,000 if he'd sign them.

Tammi Smith, who said she thought God had sent her a baby, was later sentenced to 30 days in jail, after a jury found her guilty of forgery and conspiracy to commit custodial interference.

Muddling the already sensational case further, McQueary got into legal trouble. He was charged with trafficking in stolen goods after he took a friend's Wii, fled, and then turned himself in to testify against Tammi Smith.

McQueary and Tammi Smith are older and have paid their debts to society. Johnson will be outside a cell for the first time in more than four years when she turns 28 later this month. She's not expected to give a statement, a sign Victor says is of a more thoughful and less rash woman.

"The earlier Elizabeth would have stepped out of prison and said stuff," he said. That, he said, is what she did when she texted McQueary. "She freaked out. She was just lashing out at him," Victor said.

The woman he describes as more mature believes Gabriel is with "a very good family." Johnson would like to see her son, Victor said, but recognizes that it may not be in his best interests and wouldn't know where to look anyway.

But to the outside world, baby Gabriel is still missing, forgotten, and maybe dead.