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Mom-to-be killed, fetus taken

Scissors may have been used in the slaying, and the victim's other children are missing.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published September 23, 2006

EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. - A woman whose fetus had been cut from her womb - perhaps with scissors - was found dead in a weedy lot. Investigators recovered what could be the stolen fetus and searched the woods Friday for the victim's three children.

A 26-year-old woman who police say was with the children when they were last seen Monday was taken into custody.

Police said she held a funeral earlier this week for what she said was her stillborn child; investigators are now analyzing those remains to see if they are the stolen fetus.

Authorities provided few details of the investigation and stopped short of calling the woman a suspect in the slaying of 23-year-old Jimella Tunstall, saying only that she was a person of interest. Police did not release her name, but the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported the woman is custody was Tiffany Hall, 24, of East St. Louis.

"Our main concern at this point is trying to find the children alive," State Police Capt. Craig Koehler said.

Dozens of searchers scoured Holten State Park in East St. Louis for Tunstall's children, ages 1, 2 and 7. Investigators did not say why they thought the children were there. Officials suspended the search Friday evening, and said they would resume today.

East St. Louis police Chief James Mister said the boyfriend of the woman in custody said she told him Thursday that she killed a pregnant woman to get the fetus.

An autopsy showed that Tunstall's death was "very graphic and very brutal," said Ace Hart, a deputy coroner. She died of a wound to the abdomen caused by a sharp object, possibly a pair of scissors that was found near her body, he said.

Hart said the woman in custody summoned police to Holten Park on Sept. 15, saying she had gone into labor. The dead baby, taken to a hospital, showed no signs of trauma, and an autopsy failed to pinpoint a cause of death, he said.

[Last modified September 23, 2006, 01:30:40]