The story of a fetal abduction on Milwaukee's south side is so gruesome and troubling.
A 23-year-old woman, Maritza Ramirez-Cruz, and her unborn baby, Omar, were murdered. The suspect in their deaths had pretended to be pregnant.
From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
The woman suspected of abducting and killing an unborn baby and his 23-year-old mother pretended to be pregnant for months, neighbors said Sunday.
"I never asked her if she was pregnant. She was acting like she was," said Jacqueline Bonilla, whose daughter lives in the house next door to the suspect. "She'd push her belly out and I'd say, 'Oh, she's pregnant.' "
When the woman helped her boyfriend put a jack under her car a couple of weeks ago so the tires could be changed, it made Bonilla wonder.
"If she's pregnant, why'd she do that?" she said. "Then she got up and she put her hand on her belly and rubbed the side."
Photos on the suspect's Facebook page also show her posing with her hands on her belly and in profile.
The suspect's neighbors were still reeling Sunday from the shock of a dead full-term baby boy being carried out of the home near the corner of S. 7th and W. Mitchell streets Thursday, and the body of his mother being removed Friday. Police said it was a case of fetal abduction - the baby was removed by force from his mother's womb.
Family members of the slain mother, Maritza Ramirez-Cruz, said she was due to give birth Oct. 16 to a boy she had already named Omar. She left her home on S. 13th St. Thursday morning to run a brief errand, according to WTMJ-TV (Channel 4).
Ramirez-Cruz did not know the woman arrested in her murder, and no one in her family had ever seen the suspect, Ramirez-Cruz's stepmother told WTMJ.
"I would like to see her put away for the rest of her life for what she did to her and the baby," said Darla Guiterrez, Ramirez-Cruz's stepmother.
A nursery already had been set up for the baby, who would have been the fourth for Ramirez-Cruz. A baby shower was held last month.
"We still can't believe it. We know it's true, but we can't believe it and the whole family is taking it real hard," Guiterrez said.
Ramirez-Cruz's husband, Christian Mercado, told WTMJ through an interpreter that his wife had mild contractions Thursday morning and left the house around 9:15 a.m. to run a quick errand and then return home. Mercado went to work but asked her to call him if she wanted to go to the hospital.
The couple have three children all younger than 6.
My heart goes out to the family of Maritza Ramirez.
Her three children have lost their mother and their baby brother.
The suspect apparently faked a pregnancy. She has three children of her own. It's a shocking story with many victims.
"Fetal abduction" is a weird term. I think "double homicide" is more appropriate.
Video from FOX6 News:
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