Babysitter Charged With Drowning 3 Kids in Bathtub*

Friday , April 20, 2007
BELLEVILLE, Ill. —

A baby sitter already accused of killing a pregnant friend was charged
Friday with drowning the woman's three children in a bath tub and then
hiding the bodies in the family's washing machine and dryer.

Grand jurors indicted Tiffany Hall, 24, on three counts of first-degree
murder in the East St. Louis deaths last September of DeMond Tunstall,
7, Ivan Tunstall-Collins, 2, and Jinela Tunstall, 1.

Hall admitted she drowned Ivan Tunstall-Collins and Jinela Tunstall,
then found their brother, DeMond Tunstall, Illinois State Police
investigator David Bivens testified during a coroner's inquest last week.

"She told DeMond it was time to take a bath, and she drowned him, too,"
Bivens said.

A coroner's jury ruled the deaths of the children, their mother, Jimella
Tunstall, and her fetus to be homicides.

Hall, already charged in the deaths of Tunstall and her fetus, could
face the death penalty if convicted. She has pleaded not guilty in those
deaths and remained jailed Friday on $5 million bond.

A message left Friday with one of her attorneys was not immediately
returned.

During the coroner's inquest last week, Bivens testified that Hall
admitted beating the pregnant Tunstall over the head with a table leg,
then cutting her fetus from the womb in a bathtub, where she later
drowned Tunstall's three children.

"The senseless taking of the lives of defenseless children must be
answered with appropriate punishment," St. Clair County's State's
Attorney Robert Haida said Friday.