Mexican authorities recently arrested a woman and her husband for gruesome allegations involving strangling a young pregnant woman and cutting her unborn child out of her womb.
The Daily Mail reports Cinthia Fatima allegedly lured Jessica Gabriela, 20, to her home in Tampico, Mexico with an offer of free baby clothes.
There, authorities allege Fatima strangled Gabriela to death and them cut her unborn baby out of her womb. Fatima’s motivation allegedly stemmed from a recent miscarriage; authorities believe she wanted to kidnap Gabriela’s unborn baby and pass him/her off as her own child.
Here’s more from the report:
Ms Gabriela met Fatima on social media and went to meet her after being offered some baby clothes and her family reported her missing, according to local media.
Authorities were alerted to the possible link after a woman, claiming to be Fatima’s sister, turned up at a hospital with a dead baby.
Some reports said she told doctors her sister had a recent still-birth at home, but others said she lost the baby months earlier and kept it secret.
Fatima then allegedly contacted several pregnant women on social media to try to kill them and steal their unborn children.
Fatima’s husband, Omar Erique, also was arrested.
The investigation continues, and few other details are available about Gabriela’s baby or the alleged crime. Reports do not state how far along she was in the pregnancy.
The gruesome attack, while uncommon, is not unheard of. LifeNews has reported several similar attacks in the past few years, the most notable being Colorado woman Dynel Catrece Lane, who was convicted for attacking a pregnant woman and cutting her 7-month unborn baby from her womb. In this unbelievable act of violence, the baby died but the mother, Michelle Wilkins, survived.
In 2016, a judge sentenced Lane to 100 years of prison for assaulting and attempting to murder Wilkins, but Lane did not face charges for Wilkins’ daughter’s death. Colorado does not recognize unborn babies as victims of violence in such circumstances.
Brazilian authorities investigated a similar attack in 2017. The Metro reported at the time that Naiara Silva Costa, 22, and her baby both died in the attack, allegedly at the hands of another woman, Suelen Coimbra do Carmo, 27, who was pretending to be pregnant.
A similar case involving two New York women occurred in 2015. In that case, the mother died but the unborn baby miraculously survived. The perpetrator, Ashleigh Wade, 24, was found guilty of murder and kidnapping in 2017.
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Some experts believe the extremely rare but highly disturbing crime of abducting babies in the womb is increasing in the United States.
“Also known as cesarean kidnapping, it occurs when a woman desires a child so badly she is prepared to attack a mother-to-be and cut the baby from her womb, then try to pass it off as her own,” according to a 2015 report in The Guardian.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children reported 18 cases of fetal abduction since 1983 in the U.S., but 14 have occurred in the past decade, according to the report. Four additional attempts were foiled, the report states.
