Ill. Woman Slain; Fetus Cut From Womb
Pastor Dale Morgan
Ill. Woman Slain; Fetus Cut From Womb*
Saturday September 23, 2006 9:31 AM
By JIM SUHR
Associated Press Writer
EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. (AP) - Authorities suspected there was more to the
story when police found in a park a woman with a dead fetus that she
claimed was stillborn.
Ace Hart, a deputy coroner, said the 26-year-old woman flip-flopped in
her story, saying she'd gone into labor accidentally after having
consensual sex with a man she knew only as Tony. She also told police
she'd been raped.
At the hospital, Hart said, the woman refused to be examined. The
lifeless baby girl ``looked normal'' with no signs of trauma, and an
autopsy failed to pinpoint how she died.
``We didn't even figure it was a homicide,'' he said.
Authorities aren't so sure now. On Friday, investigators were trying to
unravel whether the woman got the baby from 23-year-old Jimella
Tunstall. Hart said perhaps the woman removed the fetus from Tunstall's
womb with scissors found near the corpse in a weedy lot.
The slaying ``was very graphic and very brutal,'' he said.
Authorities stopped short of calling the woman a suspect in Tunstall's
death. Prosecutor Robert Haida said his office wouldn't rush to judgment
in filing charges.
Searchers scoured the park for three of the slain woman's children, who
investigators say were last seen Monday with the woman considered a
person of interest in the case. She has been taken into custody.
``Our main concern at this point is trying to find the children alive,''
State Police Capt. Craig Koehler said.
Authorities say the woman in custody acknowledged to her boyfriend
during the baby's funeral Thursday that the child wasn't his, and that
she killed the mother. The boyfriend told police, who arrested his
girlfriend hours later, investigators said.
The Associated Press is not naming the woman because she has not been
charged with any crime.
Authorities refused to discuss many details of the case, including
whether the two women knew each other, where the person of interest was
being held or if she had an attorney. Also unclear was which came first:
the discovery of Tunstall's body Thursday or the alleged funeral
confession by the woman in custody.
An autopsy Friday showed that Tunstall died of a wound to the abdomen
caused by a sharp object, Hart said.
``We're thinking it's scissors,'' he said.
DNA tests should determine whether the baby was the one Tunstall was
carrying, Hart said.
He said the woman in custody summoned police to Frank Holten State Park
on Sept. 15, saying she had gone into labor.
The baby was buried Thursday after a funeral arranged by L. King Funeral
Chapel, whose president said the 26-year-old who claimed to be the
mother called minutes after the service was to start, asking if she
could reschedule for a different day so more relatives could attend. At
the time, Levi King said, only two relatives were there.
The woman showed up two hours late, he said.
``That was strange,'' King said. ``That's never happened before.''
The woman signed an affidavit for the funeral home stating the child was
hers, he said.
Dozens of searchers on Friday scoured the park for Tunstall's children,
ages 1, 2 and 7. Investigators would not say what led them to believe
the children were there.
The woman in custody was taken to the hospital the same day a young
mother's throat was slashed and her baby kidnapped in Lonedell, Mo.,
south of St. Louis. An arrest has been made in that case, the mother is
recovering and the baby was returned unharmed.
Also in Missouri, Lisa Montgomery will stand trial April 30 on charges
of snatching a baby from the womb of Bobbie Jo Stinnett at her Skidmore,
Mo., home in 2004. The baby survived.
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Associated Press writers Jeff Douglas, Jim Salter and Chris Leonard
contributed to this report.