GERMANTOWN, Md. (WUSA) -- The girlfriend of a man charged with kidnapping a 2-year-old from Best Buy last Wednesday is explaining what happened.
The woman who wants to remain anonymous told 9NEWS NOW on Sunday that Jermaine Palmer, 23, is still in jail but he wanted her to apologize on his behalf.
"He is ashamed of what happened and he's been reading the newspaper," she said. "He doesn't remember anything that happened but wants to apologize to the public and especially to the family that was involved."
The woman, who is mother to his child, said she was with Palmer and their toddler that afternoon when he started saying he was seeing demons. At the time, he was high on PCP and Ecstasy, she said.
"He was hallucinating," she said. "Actually I was the one who had told him to leave. It started with us. When I took the child he was seeing demons and he was trying to hold us both and protect us both. We didn't understand what was going on."
Surveillance video shows Palmer fall to the ground near the front entrance of the store. He gets back up after a few seconds, walks in a mini circle and then grabs a two year old stranger walking in front of Palmer. That boy was at Best Buy with his father, Robert Cox.
Police say he and several other shoppers chased Palmer to the outside parking lot where they held him down until police came. Palmer's girlfriend said he told her he thought that Cox's child was his own.
"After it was all done I went up to the gentleman and apologized," she said. "He was understanding and he spoke to me, He said: 'It seems like he's on drugs and the sad thing is he won't remember it later.'"
That turned out to be true. Now, she said that Palmer is ready to go to rehab and wants other young people addicted to drugs to pay attention to his story.
"There's lots of kids doing this drug," she said. "It's addictive and they'll do it three or four times a day. Eventually something is going to happen and they don't understand that and he wants them to understand that. He felt like he was in control."