Fetal abduction
Encyclopedia
Fetal abduction is the kidnapping
Kidnapping
In criminal law, kidnapping is the taking away or transportation of a person against that person's will, usually to hold the person in false imprisonment, a confinement without legal authority...

 of an unborn child by forcing a pregnant mother to comply with an early cesarean
Caesarean section
A Caesarean section, is a surgical procedure in which one or more incisions are made through a mother's abdomen and uterus to deliver one or more babies, or, rarely, to remove a dead fetus...

, and then taking the fetus
Fetus
A fetus is a developing mammal or other viviparous vertebrate after the embryonic stage and before birth.In humans, the fetal stage of prenatal development starts at the beginning of the 11th week in gestational age, which is the 9th week after fertilization.-Etymology and spelling variations:The...

 directly from the mother’s womb. The mother is usually murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...

ed, or does not survive the cesarean process. Depending on the age of the fetus, sometimes the child does not survive either.

Abductor profile

Fetus abductions often happen at the hands of a friend, and are almost always done by a woman. According to “Abductions from the Womb”, an article by Dr. Marlene Dalley for the RCMP
Royal Canadian Mounted Police
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police , literally ‘Royal Gendarmerie of Canada’; colloquially known as The Mounties, and internally as ‘The Force’) is the national police force of Canada, and one of the most recognized of its kind in the world. It is unique in the world as a national, federal,...

, “In most cases of fetus abduction, the abductor befriends the pregnant victim, all the while planning to kill her and extract the baby by Caesarean section, obviously risking the baby's health and life. Unlike infant abductions, the fetus abductor is so determined to give birth to a child that she actually acts out the fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...

 of delivering the baby herself, rather than kidnapping one already born.” The abductors carried out such crimes because they felt a desire to form or strengthen a partner relationship and to live out a fantasy of their own of delivering a child. The people who commit such a crime are often unable to have children of their own or cannot get pregnant again. Pressed for time, they merely take advantage of another woman’s pregnancy
Pregnancy
Pregnancy refers to the fertilization and development of one or more offspring, known as a fetus or embryo, in a woman's uterus. In a pregnancy, there can be multiple gestations, as in the case of twins or triplets...

. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children is a private, non-profit organization established in 1984 by the United States Congress.-Establishment and overview:...

’s spokesperson, Cathy Nahirny, stated in 2007, “Many times the abductor fakes a pregnancy and when it is time to deliver the baby, must abduct someone else's child”. These women begin with a fantasy, a dream of being pregnant, and rather than wake up from that dream, they take someone else’s.

National Center for Missing and Exploited Children

According to BBC News
BBC News
BBC News is the department of the British Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online...

 article, “The Women Who Kill for Babies” by Chris Summers (2007), “The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children is a private, non-profit organization established in 1984 by the United States Congress.-Establishment and overview:...

 (NCMEC) in Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...

 says there have been nine fetus abductions or attempted abductions since 1987. That compares with 251 infant abductions between 1983 and September 2007.” The numbers have gradually been increasing since then. Summers continues by saying: "We still do not understand why this small group of perpetrators goes to the extreme of abducting a still pregnant woman and cut the infant from her body. My guess, and it is only a guess, is that the female abductor has found it difficult to abduct an infant from a health care
Health care
Health care is the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in humans. Health care is delivered by practitioners in medicine, chiropractic, dentistry, nursing, pharmacy, allied health, and other care providers...

 facility, and is pressed for time."

1987

  • The first recorded fetal abduction happened in 1987 in Albuquerque, New Mexico
    Albuquerque, New Mexico
    Albuquerque is the largest city in the state of New Mexico, United States. It is the county seat of Bernalillo County and is situated in the central part of the state, straddling the Rio Grande. The city population was 545,852 as of the 2010 Census and ranks as the 32nd-largest city in the U.S. As...

    . Cindy Ray was eight months pregnant when she was kidnapped at Kirkland Air Force Base outside a prenatal clinic
    Prenatal care
    Prenatal care refers to the medical and nursing care recommended for women before and during pregnancy. The aim of good prenatal care is to detect any potential problems early, to prevent them if possible , and to direct the woman to appropriate specialists, hospitals, etc...

    . Darci Pierce was nineteen years old when she strangled to death the pregnant woman. She used her car keys to open Ray’s womb, snatching the unharmed fetus, Millie. Millie lived on, and Darci faced life in prison for her crime.

1995

  • Deborah Evans was murdered in her apartment in Addison, Illinois
    Addison, Illinois
    Addison is a village located west of the Chicago Metropolitan Area, in DuPage County, Illinois, United States. The population was 35,914 at the 2000 census. The estimated population was 36,378 as of 2002.The Village of Addison lies on Salt Creek...

    . Jacqueline Williams, her boyfriend Fedell Caffey, and her cousin Lavern Ward went into the woman’s home and shot Evans in the head. She had three children and was pregnant with a fourth. Two of Evans' children were murdered along with their mother. Evans' murderers then proceeded to cut through her womb with scissors and remove the fetus. One of the children, a baby boy, survived, as did the fetus. The three murderers were caught and sentenced to life in prison.

1996

  • In Tuscaloosa, Alabama
    Tuscaloosa, Alabama
    Tuscaloosa is a city in and the seat of Tuscaloosa County in west central Alabama . Located on the Black Warrior River, it is the fifth-largest city in Alabama, with a population of 90,468 in 2010...

    , seventeen-year-old Carethia Curry was murdered by her friend, 29-year-old Felicia Scott. Carethia was abducted by her friend on a night out. She was found three months later, stuffed in a garbage can at the bottom of a fifty-foot ravine with several gunshot wounds to the head, her torso
    Torso
    Trunk or torso is an anatomical term for the central part of the many animal bodies from which extend the neck and limbs. The trunk includes the thorax and abdomen.-Major organs:...

     sliced open. The baby girl Curry was carrying survived, and Scott was jailed for life.

1998

  • Margarita Flores was eight months pregnant when she received a phone call from Josephina Saldana, who offered her gifts of baby furniture and a free one-year supply of diaper
    Diaper
    A nappy or a diaper is a kind of pant that allows one to defecate or urinate on oneself discreetly. When diapers become soiled, they require changing; this process is often performed by a second person such as a parent or caregiver...

    s for the expectant mother. Flores went to a warehouse to collect them. Josephina was caught at a hospital
    Hospital
    A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment by specialized staff and equipment. Hospitals often, but not always, provide for inpatient care or longer-term patient stays....

     the day afterwards carrying a dead fetus that she claimed to have just given birth to. After being found guilty, she was brought to prison. She did not live out her full sentence, hanging herself while in incarceration
    Incarceration
    Incarceration is the detention of a person in prison, typically as punishment for a crime .People are most commonly incarcerated upon suspicion or conviction of committing a crime, and different jurisdictions have differing laws governing the function of incarceration within a larger system of...

    .

2000

  • Teresa Andrews lived in Ravenna, Ohio
    Ravenna, Ohio
    * Chris Bangle; automobile designer* Bill Bower, last surviving pilot of the Doolittle Raid* David D. Busch; best-selling author* William Rufus Day; U.S. Supreme Court justice* Calvin Hampton; Classical organist* Robert B...

    . She was twenty-three years old, pregnant, and shopping when she ran into Michelle Bica. Bica was thirty-nine-year-old and was pretending to be pregnant when she ran into Teresa, and the two exchanged addresses. Then Bica started stalking
    Stalking
    Stalking is a term commonly used to refer to unwanted and obsessive attention by an individual or group to another person. Stalking behaviors are related to harassment and intimidation and may include following the victim in person and/or monitoring them via the internet...

     Teresa. Bica invited the woman to her home, then killed her, extracted the fetus she was carrying, and buried the woman in her garage
    Garage (house)
    A residential garage is part of a home, or an associated building, designed or used for storing a vehicle or vehicles. In some places the term is used synonymously with "carport", though that term normally describes a structure that is not completely enclosed.- British residential garages:Those...

    . The baby survived, and Bica claimed he was her son. When Bica was being investigated by the FBI
    Federal Bureau of Investigation
    The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...

    , she became fearful of punishment for her crime and shot herself.

2003

  • Carolyn Simpson of Okemah, Oklahoma
    Okemah, Oklahoma
    Okemah is a city in Okfuskee County, Oklahoma, United States. It is the county seat of Okfuskee County. It is the birthplace of folk music legend Woody Guthrie. Thlopthlocco Tribal Town, a federally recognized Muscogee Indian tribe, is headquartered in Okemah...

     was twenty-one years old and six months pregnant when she was shot and killed. She worked at a casino, where her murderer, Effie Goodson, age thirty-seven, was a regular customer. Goodson offered to give Carolyn a ride home, and Carolyn was later found in a ditch two miles away from her abductor. The baby, removed from the mother’s womb three months early, did not make it. When Goodson brought the fetus to the hospital, the child was pronounced dead, and it was discovered that she was not the mother. Goodson was found unable to stand for a trial
    Trial (law)
    In law, a trial is when parties to a dispute come together to present information in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court...

    , and three years later was sentenced to life in prison.

2004

  • Bobbie Jo Stinnett
    Bobbie Jo Stinnett
    Bobbie Jo Stinnett was a 23-year-old pregnant woman found brutally slain in her home in Skidmore, Missouri. The accused, Lisa M. Montgomery, then 36, was convicted of strangling Stinnett from behind and then cutting the woman's unborn child, eight months into gestation, from her womb...

     died of strangulation at the age of twenty-three at the hands of thirty-seven-year-old Lisa M. Montgomery
    Lisa M. Montgomery
    Lisa Marie Montgomery, is a woman from Melvern, Kansas who confessed to the 2004 murder of Bobbie Jo Stinnett, an expectant mother, in an attempt to kidnap her unborn baby....

    . The two had known each other previously; they were both rat terrier
    Rat Terrier
    The Rat Terrier is an American dog breed with a rich and varied background as an all-around farm dog and hunting companion. Traditionally more of a type than a breed, they share much ancestry with the tough little mixed-breed dogs known as feists...

     breeders in a dog show
    Conformation show
    Conformation shows, also referred to as breed shows, are a kind of dog show in which a judge familiar with a specific dog breed evaluates individual purebred dogs for how well the dogs conform to the established breed type for their breed, as described in a breed's individual breed standard.A...

     circuit. Montgomery had even e-mailed the victim, telling her that she wished to purchase one of her dogs. Montgomery faked a pregnancy, and on December 16, she drove from her Kansas
    Kansas
    Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...

     home to Skidmore, Missouri
    Skidmore, Missouri
    Skidmore is a city in Nodaway County, Missouri, United States. The population was 342 at the 2000 census. The small farming community which has a yearly "Punkin' Show", has made international headlines with high profile murders....

     and destroyed someone else’s. After strangling Stinnett, the woman cut open her abdomen
    Abdomen
    In vertebrates such as mammals the abdomen constitutes the part of the body between the thorax and pelvis. The region enclosed by the abdomen is termed the abdominal cavity...

     and took her one-month-premature daughter. An hour later, the victim’s mother found her body, and less than twenty-four hours later Victoria Jo Stinnett, the victim’s stolen fetus, was found healthy in Melvern, Kansas
    Melvern, Kansas
    Melvern is a city in Osage County, Kansas, United States, along the Marais des Cygnes River. The population was 429 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Topeka, Kansas Metropolitan Statistical Area.-Geography:Melvern is located at ....

    . Lisa Montgomery was incarcerated.

2006

  • Jimella Tunstall was murdered in East St. Louis, Illinois
    East St. Louis, Illinois
    East St. Louis is a city located in St. Clair County, Illinois, USA, directly across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, Missouri in the Metro-East region of Southern Illinois. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 27,006, less than one-third of its peak of 82,366 in 1950...

     by her childhood friend Tiffany Hall in 2006. She had been pregnant. Jimella was knocked unconscious and her unborn baby cut from her abdomen with a pair of scissors. Neither survived the attack. Jimella’s corpse was left in a vacant lot, but the killing did not stop there. Jimella had three children, ages one, two, and seven. Hall, still on her rampage, drowned
    Drowning
    Drowning is death from asphyxia due to suffocation caused by water entering the lungs and preventing the absorption of oxygen leading to cerebral hypoxia....

     the three children and left them in the washer and dryer machines in the family’s apartment.

2008

  • Araceli Camacho Gomez of Kennewick, Washington
    Kennewick, Washington
    Kennewick is a city in Benton County in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Washington, near the Hanford nuclear site. It is the most populous of the three cities collectively referred to as the Tri-Cities...

    , age twenty-seven, was stabbed to death by twenty-three-year-old Phiengchai Sisouvanh Synhavong. Gomez’s hands and feet were bound with yarn
    Yarn
    Yarn is a long continuous length of interlocked fibres, suitable for use in the production of textiles, sewing, crocheting, knitting, weaving, embroidery and ropemaking. Thread is a type of yarn intended for sewing by hand or machine. Modern manufactured sewing threads may be finished with wax or...

     throughout the attack, and her fetus was cut from her womb with a box cutter. The child survived the vicious attack. Synhavong called the police for help and attempted to pass the fetus off as her own. It became apparent, very quickly, that she was lying and guilty of the crime.

  • Andrea Curry-Demus, after spending eight years in prison for murder, murdered again. She had stabbed an expectant mother to death to obtain the unborn fetus and take the baby for herself. When that did not work, she seized a child from a hospital. Eighteen-year-old Kia Johnson knew none of this. In Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania
    Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania
    Wilkinsburg is a borough in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States adjacent to the city of Pittsburgh. The population was 15,930 at the 2010 census, having lost more than 13,000 in the 70 years since 1940, when 29,853 people were enumerated...

    , Kia, another expectant mother, was murdered, and her fetus ripped from her womb by the same crazed woman. Kia’s body was later found in Curry-Demus’s apartment. The baby survived.

2009

  • In Worcester, Massachusetts
    Worcester, Massachusetts
    Worcester is a city and the county seat of Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. Named after Worcester, England, as of the 2010 Census the city's population is 181,045, making it the second largest city in New England after Boston....

    , the body of twenty-three-year-old Darlene Haynes was found; she was eight months pregnant, her fetus missing. “The fetus was not recovered at the scene and detectives are searching for this fetus, which, according to medical personnel, could survive but will need medical attention immediately”, police said. Two days later, Julie A. Corey, thirty-five, along with her boyfriend, Alex Dion, were arrested at a homeless shelter
    Homeless shelter
    Homeless shelters are temporary residences for homeless people which seek to protect vulnerable populations from the often devastating effects of homelessness while simultaneously reducing the environmental impact on the community...

     in Plymouth, N.H.
    Plymouth, New Hampshire
    Plymouth is a town in Grafton County, New Hampshire, United States, in the White Mountains Region. Plymouth is located at the convergence of the Pemigewasset and Baker rivers. The population was 6,990 at the 2010 census...

     The baby, Sheila Marie, weighed 4½ pounds and was in good health. Corey is being prosecuted for kidnapping charges.

  • In Washington, DC, Teka Adams, homeless and nine months pregnant, was abducted by acquaintance Veronica Deramous. Deramous enlisted the help of her seventeen-year-old son to tie up Teka and hold her captive for four days. During those four days, Deramous tried to extract the fetus from Teka. Teka was able to escape, barely clinging to life and severely injured. A neighbor called 911, and both Teka and the baby survived. The baby was named Miracle.

2011

  • According to an online AOL News Huffington Post Crime case reported on October 11, 2011, "A Milwaukee woman abducted a young pregnant mother and removed her fetus just days before the baby was due, killing both of them, authorities said. The suspect was arrested after she tried to pass the baby off as her own. Milwaukee police said the 33-year-old woman removed the full-term baby from Maritza Ramirez-Cruz' uterus "by force," but did not elaborate. The suspect called 911 on Thursday saying she had given birth at home and that the baby wasn't breathing, police said. An autopsy
    Autopsy
    An autopsy—also known as a post-mortem examination, necropsy , autopsia cadaverum, or obduction—is a highly specialized surgical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a corpse to determine the cause and manner of death and to evaluate any disease or injury that may be present...

    and investigation led police back Friday to the suspect's home, where they found the 23-year-old mother's body in the basement. The woman was arrested but has not been charged. ..."
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