Annette Morales-Rodriguez of Milwaukee, Wisc., allegedly used techniques she learned from the Discovery Channel to perform a Cesarean section on a woman she'd abducted and murdered, in the hopes she could pass the woman's child off as her own.
Morales-Rodriguez (pictured) told police that she'd lied to her boyfriend about being pregnant for months, and began to panic as her supposed due date neared. A few weeks ago, she hatched a plan to "find a pregnant woman, take the baby and make it hers"; on Thursday, near a nonprofit health-care organization she found 23-year-old Maritza Ramirez-Cruz, who was pregnant with her fourth child with her "childhood sweetheart" Christian Mercado. Morales-Rodriguez offered Ramirez-Cruz a ride:
Telling Ramirez-Cruz she needed to change her shoes, she drove them to her house. Ramirez-Cruz went inside to use the bathroom. When she emerged, Morales-Rodriguez was waiting for her with a baseball bat.
The complaint said Morales-Rodriguez began to hit Ramirez-Cruz and choked her until she passed out. Morales-Rodriguez then taped Ramirez-Cruz's feet and hands and taped over her mouth and nose. She cut her open with a knife, the complaint said. She told detectives she was trying to imitate a procedure she had seen on the Discovery Channel.
When she pulled the fetus out, the baby wasn't breathing, Morales-Rodriguez said. She smeared some of Ramirez-Cruz's blood around her thighs to make people think she herself was bleeding from giving birth. Then she called emergency services and said she'd given birth to a stillborn. She was taken to a hospital but left before she was fully examined, the complaint said.
When the medical examiner determined that the infant hadn't been born naturally, police brought Morales-Rodriguez in for questioning. When further testing revealed that she hadn't given birth, she was arrested and charged with first-degree homicide.
This is the second time a pregnant woman has been murdered and her child taken this year; in April, Kathy Michelle Coy allegedly killed Jamie Stice, a woman she'd befriended on Facebook, and performed an amateur C-section.
[AP, image of Ramirez-Cruz family members via AP]
Kathy Michelle Coy, a 33-year-old Kentucky mother of two, allegedly befriended a pregnant woman on Facebook before subduing her with a stun gun, killing her, and cutting out the baby with a drywall knife.
Needless to say, this is not a story for the faint-of-heart. According to Kentucky State Police, testifying today at a preliminary hearing, Coy claimed to have hidden a miscarriage from her husband and their son and daughter. She then apparently approached both of her children separately about taking part in a plot to kill a pregnant woman and take the baby; her kids both demurred (Coy "passed it off as a joke"), at which point Coy began to befriend at least two pregnant women on Facebook, including Jamie Stice, a 21-year-old expecting mother.
Last Wednesday, police say, Coy told Stice she would take her shopping for baby supplies. Instead, Coy drove the woman to a "wooded area," incapacitated her with a stun gun, slit her throat and cut the baby out. She then took the baby to a friend's house:
The friend called for an ambulance after helping to clean the baby and taking a picture of the newborn, Winn said. At the hospital, at about 5:50 p.m. CDT on April 13, Coy brought in a uterus, ovaries and placenta with umbilical cord still attached, along with the baby, Winn said.
Hospital staff called police. Coy insisted that she had given birth to the baby, later telling detectives that "she bought the baby for $550 from a woman named 'Ashley,' but provided few details." Her story began to break down:
"After a while, she kept saying that Ashley came back with the baby, and detective Allen said ‘there is no Ashley, I believe you're Ashley.' And she smiled and said ‘you're right,'" [Kentucky State Police Detective Chad] Winn added.
Detectives attempted to track down Coy's pregnant Facebook friends, but couldn't find Stice. Coy would later lead them to the "wooded area" where she had apparently left the body.
Following today's preliminary hearing, the case is headed to a grand jury. The baby, astonishingly, is in "good condition," according to his father. His name is Isaiah.
[News Channel 5; AP]
Kathy Michelle Coy, a 33-year-old Kentucky mother of two, allegedly befriended a pregnant woman on Facebook before subduing her with a stun gun, killing her, and cutting out the baby with a drywall knife.
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