GARY | Police on Friday had in custody a 34-year-old Gary man believed responsible for abducting his 1-day old infant son from the Methodist Hospitals Northlake Campus.

The Gary man, along with a second male accomplice, were being held pending possible charges, Gary police Lt. Samuel Roberts said. He declined to release the names of the two men prior to their being charged.

Charges, which would be filed through the Lake County Prosecutor's office, could include neglect of a dependent or child endangerment, police said.

Roberts said the infant was returned unharmed to his mother, who had alerted police about her son's abduction Friday morning and named the boy's birth father, to whom she isn't married, as the abductor.

"It's a happy ending," Roberts said Friday of the infant's safe return.

He said police were alerted to the abduction shortly after 9 a.m.

"We received a call that a baby had been taken by a known party, the baby's father," he said.

A description of his vehicle and the Gary man's name were released over police radio, he said.

About 9:30 a.m. police on patrol noticed a car and a passenger matching the man's description near 45th Avenue and Delaware Street, he said.

Officers pulled the car to the curb and noticed a passenger holding a bundle in his arms, he said.

"The dad told police he didn't want them (the baby's mother and family) to take his baby," he said.

He turned over the infant to police without incident and the baby was taken back to the hospital nursery.

Methodist staff, who initiated the hospital's alert system for infant abduction, learned that the newborn was in his mother's room at the time of the disappearance, according to Carole Biancardi, Methodist's director for corporate communications and marketing.

"Despite the hospital's comprehensive, electronic infant security system, the (baby's) security band was tampered with and found under the mattress," she said.

Neither police nor the hospital released the name of the baby or his mother.