Kids of Slain Ill. Woman Are Found Dead
Pastor Dale Morgan
*Kids of Slain Ill. Woman Are Found Dead*
Sunday September 24, 2006 8:01 AM
By JIM SUHR
Associated Press Writer
EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. (AP) - Three young children were found dead
Saturday, hours after a woman was charged with killing their pregnant
mother and her fetus in a grisly attack in which authorities believe her
womb was cut open after she was knocked unconscious.
The two boys, ages 7 and 2, and their 1-year-old sister were found
together in an apartment in the East St. Louis public housing complex
where their mother lived, Illinois State Police Capt. Craig Koehler said.
The kids were last seen Monday with family friend Tiffany Hall, 24, now
charged with first-degree murder in the death of their mother, who is
believed to have been slain days before her children disappeared. Hall
is also charged with intentional homicide of an unborn child, prosecutor
Robert Haida said.
Koehler declined to say whether Hall was suspected in the children's
deaths. The cause of their deaths had not been determined and autopsies
would be performed Sunday, he said.
The bodies of DeMond Tunstall, 7, Ivan Tunstall-Collins, 2, and Jinela
Tunstall, 1, were found in an apartment at the John DeShields public
housing complex.
Authorities said a lead directed them to check the apartment, which had
not been searched previously. They declined to release more information.
``Anytime you have three deceased children, it's a very emotional
time,'' Koehler said late Saturday as he fought back tears. ``All these
investigators have worked tirelessly with one outcome in mind - to find
these children alive.''
The body of their mother, Jimella Tunstall, 23, was found Thursday in a
weedy East St. Louis lot.
An autopsy showed Tunstall, who was seven months pregnant, bled to death
after sustaining an abdominal wound caused by a sharp object, believed
to be scissors, said Ace Hart, a deputy St. Clair County coroner. He
called the slaying ``very graphic and very brutal.''
Relatives say Tunstall grew up with Hall and had let her baby-sit her
children.
``She said (Hall) was looking out for her,'' Tunstall's brother, Ernest
Myers, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Family members told the paper Tunstall had lost custody of her children
at one point but was trying to get her life back on track. ``She had a
heart of gold,'' Myers said.
Officials suspect Tunstall was slain on or about Sept. 15, Haida said.
The same day, Hall summoned police to a park, saying she had given birth
to a stillborn child, Hart said.
Hall and the fetus were taken to a hospital, where she would not let
doctors examine her and offered conflicting reasons for why she went
into labor, alternately saying she had consensual sex and was raped,
Hart said. The dead baby showed no signs of trauma, and an autopsy the
next day failed to pinpoint a cause of death, Hart said.
Hall has two children of her own. Koehler said they are ``safe and sound.''
Authorities say Hall acknowledged to her boyfriend during the baby's
funeral Thursday that the child wasn't his, and that she had killed the
mother to get it. The boyfriend, reportedly a sailor home on leave, told
police, who arrested his girlfriend hours later, investigators said.
Hall, jailed on $5 million bond, will likely be arraigned Monday on the
two charges, each carrying a 20 to 60 years or life in prison, Haida
said. The murder count could be punishable by the death penalty.
DNA tests should determine definitively whether the baby was the one
Tunstall was carrying, Hart said.
The baby was buried Thursday as Taylor Horn after a funeral arranged by
L. King Funeral Chapel, whose president said Hall 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, ultimately signing an affidavit for
the funeral home stating that the child was hers, King said.
The East St. Louis case is the second recent case in the area involving
babies.
Shannon Torrez, 36, of Lonedell, Mo. - south of St. Louis, about an
hour's drive from here - is accused of slashing a young mother's throat
and kidnapping her baby on Sept. 15. The baby was returned unharmed
Tuesday, the same day Torrez was arrested.
Also in Missouri, Lisa Montgomery is to 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.