John and Lynn Ziegler are in jail charged with state welfare theft.

SKOWHEGAN (AP) – Investigators are trying to determine whether a Fairfield couple faked the birth of a child to collect welfare, tried to steal someone else’s baby, or attempted to sell their own child on the Internet.

Maine State Police say they don’t know if Rose Zeigler ever existed, or whether she did and is now missing. Her alleged parents, John and Lynn Zeigler, are now in jail charged with state welfare theft.

“In 18 years, this is the most mysterious case I’ve ever worked on,” State Police Detective Tim Urquhart said after a court hearing Monday.

The Zeiglers – each represented by their own lawyer – appeared separately in Somerset County Superior Court to make a first appearance on the welfare fraud charges. They both pleaded innocent to Class C theft. Attorney Peter Barnett, who is representing John Zeigler, said the couple has confessed that it was a scam.

Lynn Zeigler’s attorney, Philip Mohlar, said medical tests prove Lynn Zeigler has never been pregnant in her life.

But the questions persist and Assistant Attorney General David Spencer said it “has danger to a child at its heart. The Zeiglers had offered a child for adoption on the Internet,” Spencer said, “and one couple even sent them several thousand dollars.”

The investigation began last July. A woman contacted the Maine Department of Human Services to request that a welfare check be sent for the Zeiglers’ infant daughter, Rose.

Spencer said the woman had applied to the couple to be a nanny but never saw the child.

The woman told police that the Zeiglers wanted her to leave her baby with them while she went apartment hunting. “They were trying to get their hands on a child,” Spencer said.

Fairfield police found no baby at the Zeigler home but did find a crib, a partially completed baby book and other items. Spencer said the couple insisted the baby was with friends.

“They provided a birth certificate from Oklahoma, where they claimed to have had a home birth,” said Spencer. “They insisted there was a baby.” But as the investigation continued, no baby was found. Eventually Lynn Zeigler said she had a miscarriage and investigators set up an appointment for her to take a polygraph, but she disappeared.

A search of the couple’s computer uncovered instructions on how to abduct a child and alter its identity.

Police then discovered that Lynn Zeigler’s mother in Monmouth was using the couple’s welfare debit card.

A summons for welfare theft of $6,600 was issued for the couple. They were arrested in New York in early September. “Our underlying concern was, ‘Where is the baby?”

Spencer said.

John Zeigler is being held with bail set at $15,000 at Somerset County Jail in Skowhegan and his wife is being held on $10,000 cash bail at Kennebec County Jail in Augusta. They are next due in court Nov. 19.

AP-ES-11-04-03 1035EST