Ohio Teenagers Get 23 Years for Attacking Pregnant Girl, Killing Unborn Baby

State   |   Steven Ertelt   |   May 7, 2008   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Ohio Teenagers Get 23 Years for Attacking Pregnant Girl, Killing Unborn Baby

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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
May 7
, 2008

Cincinnati, OH (LifeNews.com) — Two Ohio teenagers who had been convicted of attacking a pregnant woman and killing her unborn child are headed to prison for the next 23 years. The teens attacked Kerria Anderson because she refused to have an abortion of her baby, whom one of the boys thought he fathered.

Alfonso Price, now 16, and his friend Jebrell Wright, 17, reportedly kicked Anderson, who was seven months pregnant, in the stomach and hit her causing her to miscarry the unborn child.

She planned to name her baby Precious, but the baby was born stillborn after the attack.

A Hamilton County Common Pleas Court found the teens guilty in April of killing the baby and assaulting Anderson. They were also convicted on kidnapping charges.

The teens received a 23-year to life sentence during a hearing on Tuesday after prosecutors held the pair accountable under an unborn victims law pro-life groups helped put in place that offers protection and justice for pregnant women and their unborn children who are victims of violent attacks.

DNA tests eventually confirmed Price was not the father of the unborn child.

During the trial, Assistant Hamilton County Prosecutor Rick Gibson explained what happened and discussed the results of the DNA testing during his opening statements in the murder trial.

Gibson explained that Anderson was beaten on two occasions but suffered the most during the second attack, where Price and a friend allegedly kicked and hit her stomach and caused her baby’s death.

“B—- you should have got an abortion, now your baby is going to die,” Anderson said Alfonso told her during the attack.

Anderson was eventually able to contact authorities, but the baby girl wasn’t able to be saved. Her skull had been fractured in the attack.

"There was no fetal heartbeat. It was clear to (the doctor) the baby was already dead," Gibson said.

In their defense, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported, defense attorneys for Price said there is no question Anderson was severely beaten but they contended Price had nothing to do with the baby’s death.

Mary Jill Donovan told the jury Price was trying to pull Anderson away from Wright — who prosecutors say assisted Price in assaulting Anderson.

Earlier, Betty Payne, who would have been Anderson’s baby’s great-grandmother, told the Cincinnati Enquirer newspaper she was "satisfied" with the murder charges brought against Price.

“I want justice to be (served) because it should be," she said.

"He wanted her to get an abortion because they were not together," Payne said. "He didn’t want his baby raised by another man."

Two doctors testified in court earlier that the baby was 29 weeks into the pregnancy and would have survived if not for the trauma Price and Wright caused.

The case brings more attention to violence against pregnant women, especially those whose refusals to have abortions spark violent rage in their partners.

Ohio is one of 36 states with a law protecting pregnant women and their unborn children and providing them with justice when they are injured or killed in an attack.

Twenty-six of the states, including Ohio, allow prosecutors to bring forth two charges at any time during the pregnancy for death or injury to both mother and child and another 10 states only protect women and children in the latter stages of pregnancy.