Baby Be Mine Read online

  She plotted her defense and started putting the pieces into place. On February 8, she visited her father and told him the story she concocted. She had been riding in a car with a friend, she said. When the police stopped the vehicle, she fainted. When she came around, she told her father, the police were gone, her friend was gone but there on the car seat was a baby.

  Her father didn’t believe her story, but before he could figure out what to do, the police were knocking at his door. They had an arrest warrant for Felecia.

  On March 14, 1996—six months after Carethia’s disappearance—her body was found in the ravine. Prosecutors filed murder and kidnapping charges against both Felecia Scott and Frederick Polian.

  At his trial, Frederick admitted to disposing of the garbage can, but insisted that he did not know a body was inside it. He was adamant that he had nothing to do with Carethia’s murder. He was acquitted on the murder charges, but found guilty of kidnapping.

  Felecia had a separate trial where her attorneys claimed that Frederick was responsible for the death of Carethia. Felecia, they said, only went along with Polian’s plot because she feared for her life. Felecia Scott was found guilty on all charges and, although the death penalty was possible, the jury recommended life without parole.

  Josefina Saldana was sterile from a hysterectomy performed ten years earlier. She never told her new husband about this procedure. He wanted children and, despite her physical limitations, she was determined to give him what he wanted.

  On September 13, 1998, Josefina called the Fresno home of Eliodor Cruz and his wife, Margarita Flores. The baby Margarita was expecting would be their sixth child. On the phone, Josefina claimed to be a charity worker with a gift of baby supplies. The next day, Josefina arrived and Margarita drove off with her to go to a warehouse where Margarita believed she was going to pick up free baby furniture and a one-year supply of diapers.

  It was only supposed to be a twenty-minute trip. When Margarita had not arrived home nearly two hours later, Eliodor was concerned. He called Margarita’s family and together they contacted the police.

  The day after Margarita’s disappearance, Josefina walked into a hospital with a dead fetus. She told the nurse that she’d given birth in her car.

  That same day, Serafin Rodarte, a farm worker who rented from Josefina, saw an adult body wrapped in a carpet on the property. He told police about his discovery two days later—but by that time, the body was gone. A few days after talking to police, Serafin was found hanged inside his one-room cottage. It appeared to be an act of suicide.

  Three weeks later, pieces of Margarita’s body were found mixed in with trash on a remote hillside near Tijuana, Mexico. Authorities arrested Josefina and charged her with double murder. The prosecutors decided not to seek the death penalty. The jury found her guilty in 2001 and sentenced her to life without parole.

  Two days after her conviction, Josefina used up the blades on six disposable razors to shave her head. She braided some of her hair and put it in a small package to mail. She wrote four additional letters.

  She picked up a tube of lipstick and wrote on the stainless-steel mirror in her cell: “Fresno, may God forgive you. Babies, I am not a murderer. I love you.”

  She tied a sheet around her neck. She tied the other end to the ceiling and stepped off of her cot. Jailers found her dead body hanging in her cell.

  Erin Kuhn, an emergency room technician, was 31 years old, divorced, the mother of one son, and a cancer survivor. To save her life, doctors performed a hysterectomy. Now incapable of conceiving any more children, she desperately wanted another.

  She attempted to adopt children three times without any success. When her 17-year-old unmarried niece, Kathaleena Draper, became pregnant and agreed to let her aunt adopt the baby, it seemed like an answer to Erin’s prayers.

  In March 2000, Kathaleena moved from Las Vegas to Sacramento to live with Erin. An attorney drew up adoption papers. Erin bought a crib, a car seat, diapers and piles of baby clothing for the anticipated child. Erin even selected a name for the baby boy—Jeffrey.

  Then in June, Kathaleena changed her mind. She wanted to keep her baby and she wanted to move back to Las Vegas. Erin drove her niece back to Nevada. In a room at the Lazy N Motel in Fernley, the two argued. Erin insisted that Kathaleena had to give her the baby. She had taken care of her, taken her to the doctor, made all the arrangements. Kathaleena could not back out now, her aunt demanded. Kathaleena did not wither under Erin’s barrage. The child was hers, Kathaleena said, and she would keep it. Without warning, Erin snapped.

  She shoved a latex glove into Kathaleena’s mouth and forced it down the pregnant girl’s throat. As Kathaleena asphyxiated, Erin made a horizontal cut in her abdomen. Layer by layer, she cut through Kathaleena’s body until she could remove the baby.

  Little Jeffrey was in distress. Erin performed CPR for nearly an hour before she realized her efforts were in vain. She put the infant in a garbage bag, sealed it shut and set it in the front seat of her Ford Taurus. She wrapped her niece’s body in a blue plastic shower curtain and loaded her into the back seat.

  She dumped the bag containing Jeffrey in the high desert south of Fernley near Silver Springs on the side of the highway. Erin drove back to Sacramento with Kathaleena’s body in the car. She dumped her on the side of the road on the outskirts of town.

  Erin was arrested when Kathaleena’s remains were found. Later, Erin directed authorities to the location where she had abandoned Jeffrey’s tiny body. To avoid the death penalty, she pled guilty to the first-degree murder charge in the death of Kathaleena and to a second-degree murder charge for causing the death of the baby. Erin Kuhn was sentenced to life without parole.

  At the age of 13, Michelle Zonka discovered her father’s body in the garage. He had committed suicide by inhaling carbon monoxide fumes. The trauma of that event turned Michelle from a cheerful child to one who was somber and petulant. As soon as she was old enough to leave home, she did—severing the emotional connections with the rest of her family. In 1983, Michelle married an Iranian immigrant. Relations were so strained that her family did not know he existed until after the divorce.

  After leaving her husband, she spent the next five years adrift. She lived in at least eight different cities before she settled down in the town of Ravenna in Portage County, Ohio.

  She was locked up in the Portage County jail in Shalersville from April through October 1994 after pleading guilty to receiving stolen property. Thomas Bica, a friendly, mentally slow, shy man who was overweight and suffered from a stutter, was a corrections officer for the Portage County Sheriff’s Office who’d started working the day shift at the jail on September 26 of that year. Not the most romantic way to meet, but Thomas was smitten just the same.

  After Michelle’s release from jail, she was diagnosed with a condition that causes the uterine wall to thicken and harden, making a successful pregnancy an unlikely prospect. It didn’t stop her from marrying Thomas Bica, a man who wanted to have children with her and raise a family together.

  In December 1999, she told Thomas she was pregnant. Soon she was wearing maternity clothes. She played it up for all it was worth, urging relatives to rub her belly, and squealing at them to come feel the baby kick. Except for Thomas, who was convinced he felt the movement of the baby on more than one occasion, no other family members got their hands on Michelle’s tummy in time to feel a foot kick, an elbow jab or a fetus roll to a different position. But they still believed her. After all, Michelle showed them ultrasound images of the baby. Who could doubt scientific proof?

  Michelle decorated a room, bought lots of baby bottles and installed a monitor in the kitchen that connected to the nursery. She and Tom toured the birthing facilities at Akron General Medical Center. They discussed their baby’s future.

  She even sent a letter to her employer allegedly written by her doctor:

  Due to medical complications caused by advanced pregnancy, Mrs. Michelle Bica has be
en cautioned to exercise complete bed rest until her next appointment in this office on August 2,2000. Ms. Bica should have someone with her 24 hours a day due to the nature of her illness. She should not drive any kind of motorized vehicle, lift heavy items or climb stairs. As always, this office would like to thank you for your patience in this matter.

  The letter was signed by Dr. Richard L. Mitchell. Dr. Mitchell had never once examined Michelle, and the signature on it did not match his handwriting.

  On August 26, family members threw a baby shower for Michelle, enabling her to stockpile even more supplies. She was close to term and they thought she was showing. Michelle was a heavyset woman and that helped a lot in her deception.

  She and Tom were shopping in Wal-Mart when they met Theresa and Jon Andrews in the baby department. The two couples chatted about their pregnancies and discovered that they lived just a few blocks apart. Before that encounter, Michelle said that her baby was a girl, due in early September. After learning that her neighbor’s baby boy was due at the end of the month, Michelle changed the gender and delivery date of her fantasy pregnancy to match Theresa’s real one.

  On the morning of September 27, Michelle Bica called Theresa Andrews and asked her about a Jeep the Andrewses had advertised for sale. Theresa rode in the Jeep while Michelle made a test drive. No one knows what excuse Michelle made, but Theresa was not alarmed when Michelle pulled the car into the driveway of her own neat white home with its impeccable yard. Theresa accompanied Michelle to the house and just inside the back door that opened onto the laundry room.

  Michelle pulled out a .22-caliber handgun and shot Theresa in the back. The bullet pierced her left lung and lodged in her heart—killing her instantly. Using a kitchen knife, Michelle quickly slashed her victim’s stomach and removed the baby boy.

  She then dragged Theresa into her dirt-floor garage. She buried the body in a shallow grave and covered it with some of the gravel that she ordered for delivery a few days before.

  She cleaned up the trail of blood that ran from the laundry room to the garage. She drove Teresa’s Jeep to a parking lot a block away from the Andrewses’ home. Putting the keys to the Jeep in her purse, Michelle walked the few blocks back to her house.

  After finishing her cover-up, Michelle called her husband at work and told him she delivered the baby at the hospital, but they sent her home right away because of a tuberculosis scare.

  “Why didn’t you call me before you went to the hospital?” he asked.

  “My water broke. I was in too much pain. It all happened so fast,” she said.

  Thomas was disappointed that he had not been present for the birth, but he believed every word Michelle said. For five days, she kept up the deception that the baby was hers. Neighbors who came to see the baby worried about Michelle—her solemn demeanor made them fear she was suffering from post-partum depression. She talked more about the disappearance of Theresa than she did about her baby—she seemed to be obsessed with her neighbor’s plight.

  Tom, on the other hand, was bursting with pride. His joy was apparent as he prattled on about his newborn baby boy.

  Police did not look at Michelle as a person of interest in Theresa’s disappearance until they reviewed telephone records. They questioned Michelle about cell phone calls made to the Andrews home on the morning Theresa last spoke to her husband Jon. Michelle’s responses were evasive and contradictory.

  They ended the first interview with red flags flying high. They returned to her home the next day to question her further. They stepped out of their cars and walked up the sidewalk. As they neared the front door, they heard the sound of a gunshot followed by Tom shouting, “Michelle! Michelle! Michelle!”

  Police found Michelle Bica dead from a gunshot wound to her mouth inside the couple’s bedroom. She used the same gun to commit suicide as she had used five days before to put a bullet in the back of her neighbor’s head.

  The Andrewses’ baby was not harmed—she was sound asleep in the second-floor nursery. Tom was confused and distraught. He lost his wife. He lost the baby that he thought was his own. He denied the possibility that his wife could have done such a horrible thing. He insisted that she gave birth to that baby and the baby was his.

  Then things got even worse for Tom. He discovered his wife’s credit card bills. Without his knowledge, she had accumulated $40,000 in debt. He had to sell his home to take care of the bills.

  Jon Andrews brought a lawsuit against Tom in August 2001—suing him for millions of dollars. Jon was convinced that Tom had to be aware of Michelle’s horrid plot. He even suspected that Tom could have been involved in Theresa’s murder.

  A 1997 report in Tom’s personnel file had described him as “not intelligent,” “exceptionally gullible” and “out of touch with commonsensical type of behavior.” Tom appeared less like Michelle’s accomplice and more like one more victim of her narcissistic personality.

  Effie met 21-year-old expectant mother Carolyn Simpson at the Creek Nation casino in Okemah, Oklahoma. Effie was a regular patron there. Carolyn worked at the bingo tables. Since February 2003, Effie had told everyone that she was going to have a baby. It was now December and still no delivery.

  Carolyn was six months pregnant when she left work on December 22 and met Effie in the parking lot. Effie promised her a crib and some clothing for her baby. She climbed into Effie’s car and they drove away.

  Effie stopped the car in an unpopulated area and shot Carolyn in the head. Using a knife and razor blades, she removed the 6-month fetus from the young woman’s body. She dumped Carolyn’s remains in a field near Lamar.

  Effie brought the baby home and told her husband that she had given birth on the side of the road. The next day, Effie drove thirty miles to a hospital in Holdenville. She walked through the doors with a dead baby boy in her arms.

  Effie was transferred to a hospital in Tulsa. An examination there made it clear that Effie had not given birth to the child. Because of that, she was taken into custody as a material witness in the disappearance of Carolyn Simpson.

  On the day after Christmas, a hunter stumbled across Carolyn’s mutilated body. Effie faced two charges of murder and a charge of kidnapping. She was eligible for the death penalty.

  In November 2004, Effie Goodson was found mentally incompetent to stand trial.

  All these stories had much in common with the tragedy that befell Bobbie Jo Stinnett. Each perpetrator was driven by a deadly desperation for a child. All were consumed by a narcissism so entrenched that the real mother was no more than a womb—a tool for the perpetrator to satisfy her desire.

  Each used subterfuge to get close to her victim. Some of them were driven by a more warped impulse than the one held by a typical baby kidnapper. They planned every detail. They did not just want another woman’s baby. They desired to possess a baby who never looked into the face of any other woman—one whose sole maternal imprint was their own.

  As inexplicable as it sounds, every one of these women thought that everyone else would believe that the baby belonged to her alone.

  In Kansas, Lisa Montgomery listened carefully when the news of Effie Goodson’s crime broke in the neighboring state of Oklahoma in December 2003. It was a timely story for Lisa. There were cracks in the foundation of her marriage. She could feel it in the soles of her feet. Her relationship with Kevin was in danger.

  She believed that she needed a baby to keep her man. She was incapable of pregnancy and thought that was so unfair. In her mind, she needed a baby more than anyone. She refused to allow her inability to conceive to stand in the way. She wanted to keep Kevin—she would keep Kevin—at any cost.

  She analyzed Effie’s every action. She used her observation of Effie’s errors as a template of what not to do as she planned and carried out the commission of the same crime.

  She thought it was so simple. She believed all she had to do was avoid Effie’s pitfalls. She would not steal a baby too immature to survive without medical attention. She
would not select a victim who lived near her own home. She would do everything right, she thought. She felt she would get away with the perfect crime.

  1 Journal of Forensic Sciences, July 2002, Vol. 47, No. 4. “Newborn Kidnapping by Cesarean Section“: Ann W. Burgess, R.N., D.N.S.; Timothy Baker, Ph.D.; Cathy Nahimy; John B. Rabun, Jr.,ACSW.

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  On the crisp Friday evening of December 17, 2004, Sheriff Espey approached the microphones again. “What we’re going to do tonight—this might be the last chance that law enforcement is going to be able to talk to the press. The reason is, when the attorney general’s office—the U.S. Attorneys—get involved in the case, it actually becomes a turnover to the court system, and they’ll get control of that. We’ve done our job up to this point.

  “I want to thank you people for being there for us and helping us with the Amber Alerts. And for having the patience you have had and not tormenting me and coming in and demanding that I speak to you.

  “The first forty-eight hours is very, very crucial in the Amber Alert. This case went twenty-three hours before we located this little girl. And at this point, we’re going to cancel the Amber Alert—we’re that confident that we have the girl that was taken from Skidmore.

  “I also want to thank the people who helped me on this. The department couldn’t have done it alone. The Major Case Squad, comprised of law enforcement all over northwest Missouri, the Buchanan County CSI—these people were very well trained and they were very good. They helped us out at the crime scene over in Skidmore.

  “The FBI—there were seven or eight FBI agents that came in and tremendously helped us because of some of the computer stuff that was a little out of our control. They knew about that and were ready to dig right in and get that going. Public Safety Officer Randy Strong—he started from hour one and stayed with us through this whole thing. Most everybody here has been up continuously and we’ve run leads all night long and we’ve continued to run leads today.