Woman 'killed mother and full-term foetus', US court told

A woman who faked a pregnancy and panicked as her supposed due date grew near attacked a pregnant mother with a baseball bat and cut her full-term foetus from her womb, killing the mother and baby, court documents said.

Annette Morales-Rodriguez, 33, is charged with first-degree intentional homicide while armed and first-degree intentional homicide of an unborn child while armed, following the death of Maritza Ramirez-Cruz and the boy she was set to deliver next week.

Morales-Rodriguez faces mandatory life in prison if convicted.

Morales-Rodriguez made a brief court appearance in Milwaukee, standing silent as her bail was set at $1m.

“I don’t know what she had in her mind,” said Maria Garcia, 44, who lives next to Morales-Rodriguez and described her as her best friend.

According to the criminal complaint, Morales-Rodriguez told detectives that her boyfriend wanted a son but she could not get pregnant. She told him she was pregnant anyway, but started to grow desperate as what would be her due date approached.

She told investigators she planned for two weeks to find a pregnant woman, take the baby and make it hers, the complaint said.

Morales-Rodriguez drove around last Wednesday searching for a pregnant woman, but found none, authorities said. On Thursday she drove around a non-profit organisation that provides Hispanics with healthcare and found Ms Ramirez-Cruz.

The 23-year-old had moved from Puerto Rico to join her childhood sweetheart, Christian Mercado, said Mr Mercado’s father, Carlos. They already had three children together, and Ms Ramirez-Cruz was carrying their fourth.

Morales-Rodriguez told detectives she thought about telling her boyfriend the truth, but decided against it and offered Ms Ramirez-Cruz a ride.

Telling Ms Ramirez-Cruz she needed to change her shoes, she drove them to her house. Ms 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 Ms Ramirez-Cruz and choked her until she passed out. Morales-Rodriguez then taped Ms 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 foetus out, the baby was not breathing, Morales-Rodriguez said. She smeared some of Ms Ramirez-Cruz’s blood around her thighs to make people think she herself was bleeding from giving birth, then called emergency services and said she had given birth to a stillborn baby.

She was taken to a hospital but left before she was fully examined, the complaint said.

But an autopsy the next day revealed that the baby was not the product of a natural birth. Police returned to Morales-Rodriguez’s house and took her back to the hospital. An examination verified she had not given birth, and officers arrested her.

Morales-Rodriguez is due back in court on October 19 for a preliminary hearing.

Similar cases of women taking an unborn child from a mother’s womb were reported in Massachusetts and Oregon in 2009, in Pennsylvania in 2007, in Illinois in 2006 and Missouri in 2004.

Carlos Mercado, 59, said he could not stand up when he heard Ms Ramirez-Cruz was dead.

“My heart, oh my God, it’s hurting me. I can’t sleep,” he said.

His son, who declined to speak to reporters at his home yesterday, must now raise the couple’s three children alone without much money, his father said. The oldest child is only six.

“He’ll have to be the mother and father. I don’t know how he’s going to make it. He’s got to grow them up, take them to school, get them in the shower,” Mercado said. “He’s real sad. He’s real hurt.”