Woman Who Stole Fetus Charged With First Degree Homicide
A Milwaukee mother of three who was desperate to give her boyfriend a son allegedly hunted for pregnant women until she found one alone, clubbed her with a bat, strangled her and used an Exacto knife to steal her fetus.
The mother and fetus died, and Annette Morales-Rodriguez, 33, was charged today with two counts of murder.
The victim, Maritza Ramirez-Cruz, was 23, the mother of three children, and was just days away from giving birth.
Morales-Rodriguez called 911 Thursday to claim that she had given birth in the shower, but that her baby boy wasn’t breathing. She was taken to St. Francis Hospital and the baby was taken to the medical examiner’s office according to the District Attorney’s charging document, which outlines the disturbing details.
At the hospital, Morales-Rodriguez told a detective that she had given birth in her living room and said at the time that she didn’t realize she was pregnant, the DA’s criminal complaint states. After the interview, she left the hospital before being fully examined.
The medical examiner’s office found the baby had been removed “by force,” and that the mother’s uterus and parts of her ovaries were still attached to the baby, which was about 38 to 42 weeks old when it died…