Last Friday, December 5th, 2008, the SECA web-page finally went live. (http://www.stopdumpingkids.com/)

SECA, short for “Stop Encouraging Child Abandonment,” is a concept that has been a long time coming.

From the first of the legalized child abandonment laws passed in 1999 until now, efforts to repeal and stop the dump laws have suffered from a lack of an alliance dedicated to focusing primarily on the issue.

Before SECA, responses to dump laws had been piecemeal, portions of existing organizations’ broader missions. Over the years numerous organizations have opposed and testified against the legalization of child abandonment, and individuals have contacted legislators and worked against legalized child dumping. But, there had been no one place dedicated to dismantling the evolving child abandonment infrastructure.

Thus, SECA has finally been created.

Stop Encouraging Child Abandonment works toward nothing less than the full and permanent repeal of laws that legalize child abandonment.

We feel it is not the proper role of any government to encourage child abandonment as policy.

We approach this work firmly grounded in a human/civil/identity rights perspective. We support kids, women, and reproductive autonomy.

The need for SECA had become apparent over the past nine years, but the child welfare crisis in Nebraska with its law legalizing the abandonment of older children finally made it clear to the broader public, a formalized response to legalized child dumping is necessary.

Since the beginning, the consequences of such laws have been clear to those of us “in the field.” With bills rushed through state legislatures and policy and legal criticisms by and large dismissed, the general public simply never had reason to even think about the consequences of “safe haven” laws. Most people had never heard the voice of a kid who had been legally dumped. They had never seen the desperation of mothers and families utilizing the legalized abandonment laws.

Nebraska changed everything.

Nebraska’s older kid dumps, and the state’s eventual age down of eligible dumpees from 18-year olds to those 30 days and younger has solved nothing. It has merely attempted to put off dealing with the inevitable consequences “safe haven” laws create until the infants abandoned under the new law grow old enough to speak for themselves.

The child welfare abandonment disaster across the United States, legalized everywhere except Washington DC., is far from over. It is just beginning.

Out of that context, SECA was born, not so much a formal organization, for now more of a collective voice of allies, organizations, bloggers, and individuals among others working together towards the repeal of the dump laws.

If you are interested in working against the legalized child abandonment laws, or already are, SECA can serve as a resource in that work.

We can be contacted through the SECA contact page.

***

Ironically, just as the excrement really hits the fan, I find myself least able to carve out time for more than this bare bones blogging at the moment.

That said, I’ll write what little I do have time for.

Here are the latest sad additions to the Nebraska dump law casualty count:

• Oct 25th- 12-year old boy from Georgia
• Oct 27th- 15-year old girl
• Oct 28th- 17 year old boy and 15-year old girl.

To my count, this brings the total number of kids who have in some way interacted with the dump law to date, whether counted by Nebraska DHHS or not, to 28. (Again see my earlier explanations, here and here, of how I’ve reached this number.)

By way of providing some detail, Marley Greiner on her blog, Bastardette has been picking up some of the Nebraska blogging over the last few days, particularly relating to the GA abandonment:

Sunday, October 26, 2008

GEORGIA ON MY MIND: ANOTHER OUT-OF-STATE DUMP

Monday, October 27, 2008

GEORGIA ON MY MIND MORNING UPDATE

NEBRASKA SAFE HAVEN: HERDING CATS

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

ON NO! ANOTHER ONE! NEBRASKA FIASCO AD NAUSEAUM

No doubt she will have more as events unfold.

Then today, Nebraska’s Governor Heineman called for a special session (link opens a PDF) of the currently out of session legislature. (Note that some of these legislators would not be around in January when the regular session begins due to being term limited out.) The session is scheduled to begin Friday November 14th.

The revised version of the dump law, what I’ve been referring to as dump bill 2.0 would limit Nebraska’s dump window to infants three days old or younger.

I’ve already written repeatedly about how a 2.0 bill would fail to address the core problems inherent to all dump laws. Take this, from a post I wrote back on Oct 21 (Nebraska attempts to slam to barn door, only creating a new set of problems) when the “agreement” was initially announced:

As I predicted, Nebraska appears to have decided to go to dump law 2.0, the aged down version. Nebraska will still be encouraging child abandonment, just of kids too young to protect their own interests, or speak about the experience of being dumped for some years.

That does not mean these soon to be aged down dumps are less damaging.

Aging down still does nothing about so many of the core problems with the dump laws, parental rights being violated when one parent dumps and the other is out of the loop, the Indian Child Welfare Act violations, the real needs of families, and most importantly, the needs of the dumped kids themselves.

But aging down will ensure that 18 year gap between when a kid is dumped and when they hit age of majority, thus sparing the legislators, but not the kids.

If all the Nebraska legislators do is age down to version 2.0, they’ve sidestepped many issues of substance relating to the dump laws to do mere superficial tinkering, or as I put it, change the shade of lipstick on the pig.

The pig’s still there. It’s a ticking time bomb, that as more dumps happen under the new rules and the dumped kids grow older, a whole new set of problems are slowly going to become apparent, though odds are, just as in other states, they will be dismissed as ‘personal problems’ not problems inherent to the system the dump laws create.

For those of us who genuinely care about the state of child welfare in Nebraska, and want to see the state cease its encouragement of legalized child abandonment, we now appear to have just over 2 weeks to encourage Nebraska legislators to come to understand the inherent flaws in even an ‘aged down’ version of a dump law, and instead encourage them to embrace the full repeal position.

Nothing less than full repeal of Nebraska’s encouragement of child abandonment will help these kids.

It’s past time to detangle any version of a dump bill from what needs to be a second bill supporting access to for example increased access to mental health care and genuine support for families in crisis.

Repeal the dump law once and for all, then set about doing the difficult job of creating a genuine and meaningful safety net for kids and their families.

Entangling these two separate issues, legalized child abandonment and access to programs for families in crisis is a conflationary tactic. It is absolutely possible to get families in need real help without it ‘costing’ them their family ties or custodial rights. Decoupling the two actually increases the odds of people getting the help they need, as few families are willing to permanently relinquish their parental rights to help a child gain access to the system.

Falsely linking the two only enables child abandonment to continue, causing maximum damage, a lifetime’s worth of damage to these kids, all while riding on the good intentions of those seeking help.

As for the 2.0 infants, they will of course be facing a different set of issues, but will be no less abandoned, at the state’s encouragement. Their parents will also be in crisis, and no dump law is going to offer real solutions for them.

The Nebraska fiasco only exposed what lies at the core of any dump law: desperation and lack of options.

It’s past time to dump the dump laws and instead demand legislators roll up their sleeves and do the real work, building real structures towards prevention and crisis intervention.

Outsourcing Nebraska’s child welfare problems to “faith based” private agencies or “aging down” in a vain attempt to sidestep the issues the older child abandonments raise are not solutions, they’re not even band-aids.

Rather than trying to manufacture “new and better” ways of the state encouraging legalized child abandonment, the state should instead, be tackling the underlying problems that lead guardians to dump the kids in the first place.

As I keep saying, kids deserve better than abandonment.

Mere monkeying with age limits is no “solution.”

As an immediate measure, the legislature needs to repeal the dump law to prevent even further harm be done to still more kids and their families.

Then as a second step, they need to stop looking to whatever next ‘quick fix’ advocates and salespeople of various stripes would like to sell them on, and instead do the real work.

The kids are waiting, will Nebraska legislators step up?

The following is a brief introductory paragraph I’ve evolved to include with this series of posts about Andrea Curry-Demus’ Hypernatalist obsession:

Andrea Curry-Demus is a womyn with a history of abducting other womyn’s children, in one of her prior attempts she resorted to stabbing the child’s mother. She pled guilty in 1991 to aggravated assault and reckless endangerment and was sentenced to three to 10 years in prison. In August 1998 she was paroled and began serving 10 years of probation.

***

Last night a tentative ID was released on the womyn’s body found in Andrea Curry-Demus’ apartment, it is presumed to be Kia Johnson, although confirmation via dental records is still pending.

Dead Mom is identified Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 20th, ‘08

A woman who was found dead in a Wilkinsburg apartment had been sliced open in the abdomen with a “sharp weapon,” the Allegheny County medical examiner’s office said yesterday. Her hands were bound behind her back with duct tape as were her feet.

The badly decomposed body of Kia Johnson, along with a placenta, was discovered Friday afternoon in the apartment of Andrea Curry-Demus, 38, who on Wednesday had appeared at West Penn Hospital with a newborn baby whom she falsely claimed to be her own.

Ms. Johnson, who was described as about 20 years old, 5 feet, 1 inch tall and weighing between 110 and 120 pounds, was identified by the medical examiner’s office late last night.

The exact cause of death has not been determined, but during a press conference yesterday afternoon, Medical Examiner Dr. Karl Williams said, “Clearly, it is a homicide.”

We also gain a clearer picture of why Andrea Curry-Demus was brought to the hospital Wednesday night with the baby via ambulance, the child, apparently cut from what appears to be his mother’s uterus, wasn’t fully stabilized at that point:

The baby, a boy, had a low heart rate and a low temperature when Ms. Curry-Demus brought him to the hospital, Dr. Williams said. But he recovered quickly. He is still at the hospital.

Baby cut from womb; woman’s body ID’d Pittsburgh Tribune-Review July 20th, ‘08

She was just 18 and due to give birth July 30. She may have been drugged, authorities said, when she was cut open last week and her unborn child taken from her womb.

The Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office on Saturday night tentatively identified a woman found dead in a Wilkinsburg apartment — hands duct-taped behind her back — as Kia Johnson of Wilkinsburg, missing since Tuesday.

Other charges are likely to be forthcoming:

Other charges will be filed as the homicide investigation continues, Assistant Allegheny County Police Superintendent James Morton said during a news conference yesterday.

Johnson’s family (who had earlier been at the apartment waiting for news as to whether or not it was Kia, have now been notified:

The Medical Examiner’s Office said last night that based on circumstantial evidence, authorities believed the dead woman to be Johnson. The woman’s family has been notified, the office said. Dental records are expected to confirm their identification today.

There has also been a fair amount of speculation Kia may have been drugged to incapacitate her due to a lack of evidence of any kind of struggle:

The cause of death will be determined after other test results, including toxicology, are complete.

“We will be looking for any drug that might have helped incapacitate her,” Williams said. “There is not a lot of evidence of a struggle having occurred. There is some evidence that there were drugs at the scene.”

The Medical Examiner couldn’t say whether Kia was alive at the time or not, but he did point out the dependence of the then fetus (the proper medical term for in utero, until the moment of birth) on Kia:

The medical examiner said he couldn’t be sure whether the woman was alive when she was cut open, although the baby would not have survived long inside the mother after she died.

“There is a certain window of opportunity,” Williams said. “The baby is depending on the mother being alive.”

This article, similar to the one above discusses the state the infant was in when he arrived at the hospital:

The baby “was in some degree of distress when it arrived at West Penn Hospital,” but now “is apparently doing well,” he said. “The baby had some problems briefly to begin with — low heart rate, low temperature, probably from blood loss, and recovered very quickly with treatment.”

In previous articles we had seen some description of how Kia had been bound with duct tape and plastic, but this is the first mention I’ve seen of the plastic as having blocked her airways:

Her hands and feet were bound with duct tape, and a plastic material, blocking her airways, was duct-taped over her face, Williams said.

This article explains how police were able to rule out Tina Carter:

Fingerprints were used to rule out at least one person, a pregnant woman named Tina Carter whose family was concerned because they had not seen her in several days.

“I was just so happy that it’s not her,” said friend Rebecca Stevenson of Braddock. “Tina called at 11 last night. Until then, I thought it was her.”

Kia Johnson had apparently been close to her due date:

Johnson’s family, concerned for her welfare, spoke to investigators on Friday. The family said her baby was due July 30.

ME’s Office Tentatively ID’s Woman As Kia Johnson WTAE, originally posted on the 19th, updated on July 20th, ‘08

The Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s office has tentatively identified the woman who hands and legs were bound with duct tape in a Pittsburgh apartment as 18-year-old Kia Johnson. The medical examiner will compare dental records Sunday to confirm the identity of the body.

Kia Johnson was apparently last seen Tuesday:

Friends of Johnson’s told Channel 4 that she is from the McKeesport area. They also said Johnson did not frequent Wilkinsburg.Johnson was last seen Tuesday while visitng her boyfriend in jail.

Police Chief Coleman responded to a question concerning the conflation of the two apartments as well:

Flies could be seen circling around the apartment all day and an odor was noticeable from the sidewalk below, but police said they didn’t find the body earlier because Curry-Demus’ sister led them to the wrong apartment at first, police said.

Channel 4 Action News asked Chief Ophelia Coleman if the police were misled and she said, “I think that to be true, yes sir.”

By way of confirming that the dead womyn had been pregnant at the time, Dr. Karl Williams, the Allegheny County Medical Examiner stated:

“Her abdomen had been opened with a sharp weapon. The uterus had been opened. The uterus appeared gravid, which means that there had been a baby there,” Williams said.

This article also contains the detail that the police have ruled out Tina Carter as the potential victim:

Speculation circulated that the body belonged to Tina Carter, a pregnant woman who was an acquaintance of the Curry-Demus, but police have ruled that out.

The investigation is ongoing:

A precise cause of death of the woman found on Thursday remains under investigation. Authorities are awaiting dental records to confirm Johnson’s identity.

“We’re working with the coroner’s office continually on this if it takes all weekend into all of next week,” said James Morton, assistant superintendent of the Allegheny County police.The medical examiner said they are also investigating whether the woman was drugged because they found no sign of a struggle.

This piece also includes a link to WTAE’s coverage of the Medical Examiner’s press conference that took place Saturday, and the raw video thereof.

Watch The Report From The Saturday Press Conference, as reported by WTAE Channel 4’s Tara Edwards

Raw Video: Medical Examiner Press Conference

This AP piece from earlier on yesterday evening, Still no ID for dead woman in W.Pa. baby mystery, July 19th, ‘08 also contained an interesting detail, this from the Medical Examiner:

Williams says the dead woman’s fingerprints didn’t show a match in a police database.

This Pittsburgh Tribune-Review piece, Wilkinsburg woman served jail time for baby theft, stabbing, also from July 19th, ‘08 is very much a profile piece on Curry-Demus:

Andrea Curry-Demus suffered at least three miscarriages and was desperate for a baby.

During the past two decades, she stabbed a woman in a failed attempt to steal her infant and kidnapped a baby girl from a Pittsburgh hospital, court records show. This week she told police she bought a baby boy from a woman she barely knew.

Once the baby is well enough, he’s be released:

The baby, who was unharmed, will be released to the custody of the Allegheny County Department of Children, Youth and Families.

In case it was not already clear, Curry Demus’ apartment is not in the ‘well to do’ part of town:

Outside Curry-Demus’ third-floor apartment Friday, a foul, pungent odor filled the hallway and flies swarmed behind the screen of an open front window. The odor wafted to the street below.

A neighbor, Taylor Hall, 19, who lives in the apartment beneath Curry-Demus, said he didn’t think to call anyone about the odor.

“This is the ghetto. Something always smells around here,” he said.

The quote below brings us back to how it came down to the media to call police about the situation at the apartment, and how it took time before police finally entered:

A dispatcher told a reporter who called 911, suspecting a body inside, that police would check the apartment. For several hours, however, no officer responded to the call.

Wilkinsburg police Chief Ophelia Coleman said at a news conference that police had already checked the building.

“We searched the apartment, and it didn’t look like anyone had been there for a few days,” Coleman said. “Nothing was out of place, and there was nothing to lead us to believe anything violent happened there, or that a birth happened there.”

(This was due to Curry-Demus’ sister guiding police to the wrong apartment, apparently directly across the hall from Curry Demus’ apartment when they searched on Thursday.)

But the following is the profile portion, I will quote at length:

A troubled life

The tragedies of Curry-Demus’ life are played out in court records that paint the picture of a woman so desperate for a child that she became pregnant for the first time at the age of 12. She miscarried that pregnancy at about four months and sank into a depression.

Eventually Curry-Demus, who has a limited intelligence level, according to court records, graduated from Peabody High School. She took a series of maintenance jobs at fast-food restaurants.

In 1990, at age 21, she miscarried a second time, losing the fetus at 7 months, court records state. She suffered “great physical and emotional trauma” as a result, and within months was under arrest for attacking one mother and kidnapping a second woman’s 3-week-old baby.

In the first incident, Curry-Demus befriended a woman who had just given birth at Magee-Womens Hospital, spending time at the woman’s house a day or so later. During the visit, Curry-Demus told the new mother she wanted to stay overnight, and when the woman balked, Curry-Demus attacked her with a knife and tried to steal the infant. The woman’s husband intervened, and Curry-Demus ran from the home.

The next day, Curry-Demus went to Children’s Hospital, where she befriended a 16-year-old mother who had brought her 3-week-old daughter to the hospital to be treated for meningitis. When the young mother went home for the night, Curry-Demus remained. When nurses weren’t looking, she snatched the baby and left the hospital.

The newborn was found with Curry-Demus at her home, unharmed, the next day.

Curry-Demus pled guilty to various charges stemming from both incidents. She was sentenced to 3-10 years in prison in June 1991 and sent to SCI-Muncy. She was paroled Aug. 31, 1998. She was ordered to serve 10 years’ probation after her parole.

Curry-Demus was examined by psychiatrists at the Allegheny County Jail Behavioral Clinic before she was sentenced. Records show she was diagnosed with severe depression, personality disorders and auditory hallucinations.

She told doctors she spent a lot of time thinking about her miscarriages and “kept hearing babies cry.”

Horrific and incredible a story as Andrea Curry Demus is, another new detail surfaces in this Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article entitled simply, Body found in suspect’s apartment, July 19, ‘08. Just when you thought this couldn’t get any worse we learn about Andrea’s husband.

First, here’s a mention of Curry Demus’ apartment address:

Meanwhile, news reporters who visited her apartment building at 495 Ella St. notified police of a foul smell and swarms of flies in the apartment’s windows.

There is also a mention of the crowd scene at the apartment the evening before:

As investigators entered the apartment last night, a crowd of 40 to 50 people, many acquainted with Ms. Curry-Demus, gathered outside. Many had believed Ms. Curry-Demus’ claim that she had been pregnant.

“This is all too much mystery for me. I can’t even believe somebody could deceive you that long,” said close friend and neighbor Ivee Blunt.

Also at the scene were relatives of two missing pregnant women, wondering if their loved one was the victim.

Then get get down to the initial mention of her husband, Raymond Demus Jr (and their lack of children):

Ms. Curry-Demus recently married Raymond Demus Jr., according to neighbors on Ella Street. She had no children, they said.

She and her husband have extensive criminal histories and both were in the county jail yesterday. Ms. Curry-Demus has tried to kidnap babies in the past. Mr. Demus is facing rape charges. He is accused of molesting the daughter of his former girlfriend.

and further down in the article:

Her husband, Mr. Demus, 40, has a history of arrests that includes charges for firearms violations, assault, arson and drugs.

Last month, he was arrested and accused of routinely molesting a girl in North Braddock from 1997 to 2003, starting when she was in kindergarten, according to a criminal complaint.

In March, the girl told an Allegheny County police detective that Mr. Demus would often abuse her in her mother’s bedroom while he watched pornographic videos, the complaint said.

Now 15, the girl recently told her mother, Mr. Demus’ former girlfriend, about the alleged abuse.

On June 25, Mr. Demus was held for trial on 10 charges, including two counts of rape, two counts of statutory sexual assault and one count of corruption of minors.

I’ll end with a link to many of KDKA’s video pieces from Saturday:

Officials Tentatively ID Body Found In Apartment KDKA in addition to the story be sure to view the additional video segments which can be found by accessing the “video library” at the bottom right hand of the player, then use the search function for these titles:

Autopsy planned for body found in Wilkinsburg Apt July 18, ‘08 8:13pm

Medical Examiner removes body from Wilkinsburg Apt 10:11pm July 18th,08

Wilkinsburg Police body found face down July 18th, ‘08 6:14pm

Body Found in Wilkinsburg suspect’s Apartment 5:47pm & 6:22pm July 18th, ‘08

Dr: Infant abductors show degrees of aggression July 18, ‘08 6:28pm

Medical examiner working to ID body of woman 7:20pm July 19th

Also of note in the article through, is the first mention of a kidnapping charge I’d seen:

Curry-Demus is now facing charges of kidnapping and endangering the welfare of the child. She remains in the Allegheny County Jail on $10,000 bond and awaiting a mental examination.

In light of new details about her time spent in jail (see below) I’ve modified my backgrounder introduction paragraph that I’m adding to these posts about Andrea Curry-Demus slightly:

Andrea Curry-Demus is a womyn with a history of abducting other womyn’s children, in one of her prior attempts she resorted to stabbing the child’s mother. She pled guilty in 1991 to aggravated assault and reckless endangerment and was sentenced to three to 10 years in prison. In August 1998 she was paroled and began serving 10 years of probation.

***

So moving on to tonight’s early evening update:

In this recently updated CNN.com piece Woman’s corpse may be link to mystery baby (July 19th, ‘08) we learn Curry-Demus’ next court date is set for Thursday the 24th:

Curry-Demus is charged with endangering the welfare of a child, a felony, and dealing in infant children, a misdemeanor. Court records show that she was arraigned on the felony charge Friday and is next set to appear in court on Thursday. She is being held at the Allegheny County Jail, WTAE reported.

The baby is still doing well:

The baby is in good condition, a hospital spokeswoman said, and will be released to child welfare workers when he is ready.

We also get many more details on Curry-Demus’ two previous incidents of child abduction, her mental health history, and her own history of miscarriages:

According to court records obtained by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Curry-Demus became pregnant at 12 and miscarried four months later. She had a second miscarriage in 1990, when she was 21, the paper said.

Only a few months after the second miscarriage, Curry-Demus befriended a woman who had just given birth but later attacked her with a knife and tried to steal the baby, the paper said, citing the court records.

The woman’s husband intervened, and she fled, the newspaper reported.

The next day, she went to a hospital and befriended a woman who had brought her 3-week-old daughter to the hospital to be treated for meningitis, the Tribune-Review said.

When the woman went home for the night, Curry-Demus left the hospital with the baby. It was found at her home, unharmed, the following day.

In 1991, according to the records, she pleaded guilty to various charges stemming from both incidents and was sentenced to three to 10 years in prison, the newspaper reported.

She was paroled in August 1998 and ordered to serve 10 years of probation, the paper said.

Curry-Demus was examined by psychiatrists at the Allegheny County Jail before her sentencing and was diagnosed with severe depression, personality disorders and auditory hallucinations, the newspaper reported, citing court records.

She told doctors she spent a lot of time thinking about her miscarriages and “kept hearing babies cry,” the Tribune-Review said.

This piece also points out her prison term, something I first found details of and commented on after the update I wrote earlier this afternoon (specifically on this AP story from 2:31pm EST ).

The CNN piece concludes by providing two other similar recent cases:

Earlier this year, a Kansas woman was sentenced to death in the 2004 killing of a Missouri woman whose baby was cut from her womb.

Lisa Montgomery was convicted in October in the death of Bobbie Jo Stinnett, 23, who was found strangled in her Skidmore, Missouri, home. Stinnett’s womb was cut open, and her unborn child was missing. Montgomery was found days later at home in Kansas, where she was attempting to pass the baby off as her own.

(Note, “unborn child” is loaded language, and as such, terminology I reject.)

As mentioned above, the earlier full AP piece from 2:13 this afternoon provided a few other new details, for example, how the term “evisceration” was likely being utilized in the autopsy of the unidentified womyn:

The medical office would not elaborate on what was meant by “evidence of partial evisceration that included opening of the uterus.”

Pathologist Cyril Wecht, who previously served as the county’s coroner but did not participate in the autopsy, said evisceration means to cut into the abdomen and remove organs and tissues. “Obviously, they did so to get to the baby,” he said.

(Seems obvious, I know, but I’ve included it for clarity’s sake.)

While unnamed, we also learn of media attempts to contact her lawyer in the previous cases:

In the early 1990s, Curry-Demus pleaded guilty to charges relating to abducting a baby and stabbing a pregnant woman in a plot to steal her unborn baby, a newspaper reported.

The jail wouldn’t say whether Curry-Demus had an attorney, and a message left for an attorney who has previously represented her was not immediately returned.

and, as mentioned above the article also elaborates on the circumstances leading to those earlier charges:

In 1990, Curry-Demus, then known as Andrea Curry, was accused of stabbing a Wilkinsburg woman in an alleged plot to steal the woman’s infant.

A day after the stabbing, Curry-Demus snatched a 3-week-old baby girl from Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, according to court records reviewed by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. The baby was in the hospital to be treated for meningitis and the girl’s 16-year-old mother had gone home for the night when Curry-Demus took the child, court records say. The baby was found unharmed with Curry-Demus at her home the next day.

Curry-Demus pleaded guilty in 1991 to various charges stemming from both incidents and was sentenced to 3 to 10 years in prison. She was paroled in August 1998 and began serving a 10 years of probation, the Tribune-Review reported.

This Pittsburgh Tribune-Review article, Autopsy: Woman had uterus cut open from this afternoon (July 19th, ‘08), quotes Allegheny County Police assistant superintendent James Morton on how the police are approaching the case:

“What were are focusing on right now is to identify this young girl and then go from there with charges,” Morton said.

The medical examiner is trying to identify the woman with dental records.

The article also contains a number of pictures related to the story in a photo gallery.

I also wanted to backtrack a bit to an AP story I had missed from earlier this morning prior to the autopsy, Autopsy scheduled on bound body found at home of Pa. woman who claimed she bought newborn, (June 19th, ‘08). It too makes mention of her as having done (what appears to have been 7 years of) jail time:

…38-year-old Andrea Curry-Demus, who served time in the 1990s for attacking one mother and kidnapping a second woman’s newborn baby.

As of this morning, it was still unclear whether or not the dead womyn had even been pregnant, much less whether she had given birth or not:

Allegheny County Medical Examiner Dr. Karl Williams said the woman had been dead about 24 hours, but Williams said he could not tell if she had recently given birth. The autopsy was scheduled for Saturday.

Some blood was found near the body, Williams said, but he would not say if there were signs of trauma.

(Note, after the autopsy, the time of death was pushed back to having likely been dead two days before she as discovered, and of course, we now know she had indeed been pregnant.)

Prior to the autopsy details such as the womyn’s age were also undetermined:

The body found Friday was that of a black woman, but Williams said he couldn’t tell how old she was.

Apparently, as briefly mentioned above, an additional charge against Curry-Demus, “dealing in infant children”, (a misdemeanor) was also added:

Curry-Demus was initially charged Friday with one count of child endangerment. She was later charged with dealing in infant children, a misdemeanor, according to court records. She has been jailed until she posts $10,000 bond and undergoes a psychiatric exam.

The article details some additional family and friends’ reactions. As I had mentioned in my previous coverage, Curry-Demus had been presenting herself as pregnant at the time, and in the below we find her neighbor discussing the timing Andrea had spoken of in relation to her own ‘impending’ pseudo-’delivery’:

Stephanie Epps, 41, the suspect’s sister-in-law, said she had doubted the pregnancy.

“I just had a feeling that she wasn’t pregnant,” Epps said. “She would never let you touch her stomach and pregnant women let you do that. … I liked her and I still do like her.”

Ivee Blunt, a neighbor who also was at the shower, said Curry-Demus wanted her in the delivery room when she gave birth.

Blunt said Curry-Demus told her on Sunday night that she expected to have the baby the next day; but on Monday, she said, Curry-Demus told her she wasn’t ready to give birth.

Finally, adding to that ‘backgrounder’ file, see this piece, Police: Woman Cut Baby from Mother’s Womb, Taking Children Can Bring Sense of Identity, Self-Worth, Psychologists Say from ABC News back on July 2nd, ‘08. It details some of the psychology of womyn who commit crimes such as this against other womyn and how hypernatalist obsession lies at the core of such events:

A Seattle-area woman is accused of killing a pregnant stranger and cutting her live baby from her womb, one of several similar incidents that mental health experts say sheds light on the rare phenomenon of females with a pathological desire to obtain a baby at any cost.

The story and video go on to detail the recent case of Phiengchai Sisouvanh Synhavong:

As first reported by ABC News affiliate KOMO, Seattle, Phiengchai Sisouvanh Synhavong was arrested for allegedly binding Araceli Gomez’s hands and feet with yarn, removing her baby and stabbing the woman to death. Police say Synhavong later claimed that Gomez’s infant son, who survived the horrific incident, was her own.

In the last three months, two other women, in Illinois and Missouri, were convicted of similar crimes.

Ultimately, these cases often come down to desperate desire for a child, a fertility obsession of sorts:

Though the alleged crimes may seem incomprehensible, forensic psychologists told ABC News that some people who kill pregnant women and attempt to steal their babies may be motivated by extreme low self-esteem and a pathological desire to bear children.

“Unlike many homicides, in which a variety of different factors and influences make it impossible to generalize, the woman who commits this crime is someone whose feminine identity is very much wrapped up in her fertility,” said Dr. Michael Welner, a forensic psychiatrist and head of The Forensic Panel.

Such obsession with having a child can take on extreme proportions in a culture that teaches womyn that perhaps THE fundamental facet of their existence as womyn is their ability to have children (or lack thereof). In short there are both interpersonal and societal rewards for having children, and penalties for not, and some womyn in that context internalize such pressures to unimaginable degrees, leading to unimaginable actions:

Suspects generally suffer from psychosis or a severe personality disorder, said Joel Dvoskin, a forensic psychologist and assistant professor at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center.

Having children also carries tremendous cultural importance, said James Garbarino, a forensic psychologist at Loyola University. “They perceive it as bringing to them identity and self worth and recognition in the community,” he said.

In these womyn, when they lack the child they so desire, the experienced ‘need’ for such can be translated into horrific actions, usually without any empathy for the victims. Their actions are entangled in both narcissism and obsessive coveting of other womyn’s children or even pregnancies:

“The most likely answers are that the person is actually psychotic or they just have such an extraordinarily extreme way of thinking about the world, that wanting something makes it theirs,” he said.

By way of backgrounder, I previously said:

Andrea Curry-Demus is a womyn with a history of attempting to abduct other womyn’s children, one of her prior attempts she resorted to stabbing the child’s mother. She pled guilty (roughly) 17 years ago to aggravated assault and reckless endangerment. She was sentenced to 10 years’ probation.

This afternoon’s brief tragic update includes the results of the autopsy on the as of yet unidentified womyn’s body found in Andrea Curry-Demus’ Wilkinsburg apartment. For details, see Woman in W.Pa. baby mystery partially eviscerated, AP, (July 19th, ‘08 1:05 PM EDT)

The autopsy on the woman involved in a baby mystery showed partial evisceration that included her uterus being cut, authorities said Saturday.The body was found Friday in a Wilkinsburg apartment of another woman who showed up at a hospital with a newborn she falsely claimed was hers.

The body “was in a state of moderate decomposition” and appeared to have been dead for about two days before it was found, Allegheny County Medical Examiner Karl Williams said in a statement Saturday.

The woman’s hands and feet were bound with duct tape, and her face was covered with a plastic material that had also been secured with duct tape. A placenta was recovered at the apartment.

Investigators were trying to determine the woman’s identity, how she died and whether she was the mother of the baby that Andrea Curry-Demus, 38, of Wilkinsburg, allegedly told police she obtained for $1,000.

Also:

It wasn’t clear if she had an attorney.

Andrea Curry-Demus is a womyn with a history of attempting to abduct other womyn’s children, one of her prior attempts she resorted to stabbing the child’s mother. She pled guilty (roughly) 17 years ago to aggravated assault and reckless endangerment. She was sentenced to 10 years’ probation.

Below are a few more resources to help understand this breaking story.

Start by checking out the video on the upper right hand side here on KDKA’s page, Police Find Body In Pa. Apartment After ‘Baby Buy’ Particularly these three pieces (search the video library if they are not readily found by the player):

Body Found in Baby Suspect’s Apartment, July 18th, ‘08, 6:39pm EST

Medical Examiner Removes Body from Wilkinsburg Apt, July 18th, ‘08, 10:11 pm EST

Two Families Await ID of Body Found in Wilkinsburg, July 18th, ‘08, 10:14 pm EST

There are many new details in these pieces, the body found was that of a womyn, it was in an ‘advanced state of decomposition’ (suggesting she had died earlier in the week), an autopsy is scheduled for the body Saturday, etc.

Via ThePittsburghChannel.Com’s Wilkinsburg Woman Bought Newborn For $1,000 posted in the early hours of the 18th (12:12 a.m) we find a better photograph of Andrea:

We also learn of the anguish of two families waiting to learn whether or not the body of the womyn found dead in Curry-Demus’s apartment is their family member or not. See 2 Families Await ID Of Woman Found In Apartment (KDKA Jul 18, 2008 10:57 pm) (also see the video segment above):

As news spread about the case, two families who have not been in contact with their loved ones are worried.

“I’m her son’s grandmother – biological grandmother and I’ve been raising him since he was two years old and it’s just hard,” Lavenia Catunis said. “Her name is Tina Carter.”

Catunis says she’s praying. Her relative has 14 children and was pregnant with her 15th child.

“It’s very hard because I have no idea if it’s her yet. I have a grandson that I have to go home and tell this to,” Catunis said. “I don’t know what happened, I don’t know anything. I’m just really – just want it over.”

Lekieshia Banks hopes her cousin is safe.

“I just hope it ain’t her,” she said. “I just got to pray that it’s not her. I mean I’m sorry for the family that it is but my cousin’s name is Kia Johnson.”

Banks says her cousin, who was nine months pregnant, has been missing since Tuesday and has not contacted anyone.

The woman’s identity has not been released.

And finally we come to an AP article posted later in the evening on Friday (July 18th, ‘08), Cops: Body at home of woman who claimed baby buy. Apparently the ‘other apartment’ police had searched Thursday was in the same building (the video above also confirms this):

Police visited the building Thursday night but did not go into that apartment, Coleman said. Instead, a relative of Curry-Demus led them to another apartment, she said.

Andrea Curr-Demus is described as having “a history of emotional problems”:

Earlier Friday, police said they were concerned that the infant’s real mother — described as a thin, black female in her 20s or 30s named Tina — might be in danger, or need medical attention.

The description was provided by Curry-Demus but authorities aren’t sure how reliable it is because she “has a history of emotional problems,” Coleman said earlier Friday.

Homicide detectives are now the authorities in charge of the investigation:

Allegheny County homicide detectives have taken over the investigation, but Allegheny County Police Assistant Superintendent James Morton declined to comment at the scene Friday night.

***

In this piece, Body Found In Apartment Belonging To Woman Who Said She Bought Baby/Police: Woman Confessed To Buying Newborn For $1,000 (WPXI.com with contributions from the AP, originally published July 17th, revised July 18th, ‘08) we learn that Andrea Curry-Demus apparently put herself forward as pregnant, going so far as to have a baby shower with the neighbors:

Neighbors of Curry-Demus thought she was pregnant and some even attended a baby shower for her. “Everybody’s wondering where are all the gifts everybody bought her,” said a neighbor who did not want to be identified.

While this COULD line up with her tale of having a miscarriage a month ago and then arranging to ‘buy “Tina’s” baby upon birth’ (which clearly is not what happened) to cover for her lack of her own ‘pregnancy’ (?), I urge readers to remain cautious. Currently we have no evidence Andrea was pregnant at any point in the last year, and at this point we have so many different stories from Andrea it’s going to take some time to sort it all out. We do know (from a story listed below) that even after the supposed ‘miscarriage’ ‘a month ago’, she continued to present herself as pregnant to neighbors etc.

We also learn that the child was apparently born last Wednesday.

Police said the child in the latest case was born on July 16.

Police said the baby is doing fine.

Finally, we find Curry-Demus was arraigned this morning (before the body was found):

Curry-Demus is charged with endangering the welfare of a child. She was arraigned Friday and jailed until she posts $10,000 bond and undergoes a psychiatric exam.

This piece, Police: Woman Allegedly Bought Newborn Baby (KDKA.com July 18th, ‘08), is a good citation for Curry-Demus having claimed initially to have given birth herself:

Andrea Curry-Demus, 38, allegedly told police she purchased a newborn baby boy from a woman.

The bizarre story began when paramedics took Demus to West Penn Hospital from a home in Wilkinsburg.

She claimed to have just given birth to the baby. The umbilical cord was still attached. The doctors were suspicious and tests showed she was not the mother.

According to this bit, she was known as “Andrea Curry” back around the time of her earlier ‘baby frenzy’ incidents, and the name change may have been part of why it took police time to understand her past history:

KDKA has learned that Demus made news 18 years ago when she was accused of abducting a baby from Children’s Hospital.

That same year, when she was known only as Curry, was also charged with stabbing a woman in an alleged plot to steal a newborn baby from a home in Wilkinsburg.

also

The baby remains at West Penn Hospital and is in good shape.

In this Pittsburgh Tribune-Review article, Woman tells police she paid $1,000 for newborn (July 18th, ‘08) that claim of Curry-Demus having given birth herself is expanded to an alleged premature birth. We also learn the call to the paramedics took place Wednesday evening:

The woman called paramedics at 10:45 p.m. Wednesday and told hospital personnel that she gave birth prematurely and needed help. She and the baby were transported to West Penn.

Doctors became suspicious because the woman didn’t appear to have just given birth, and the baby looked full-term. They examined the woman and baby in the emergency room and called authorities.

Blood and hormone tests determined the woman is not the baby’s mother, police said.

“That child does not belong to her,” said city police Cmdr. Thomas Stangrecki. “We don’t know where she got the baby, whether someone gave it to her or how she came to have that child with her. But she didn’t give birth.”

Curry-Demus, wearing a striped green dress, was led from the Wilkinsburg police station last night in handcuffs for arraignment.

“I didn’t do nothin’,” she said in response to reporters’ questions.

The article then elaborates on her alleged baby buying arrangement, and Curry-Demus’ claim that “Tina” arrived at her apartment with a newborn wrapped in a towel :

She said she gave Tina $500 to purchase the infant and gave her some clothes and other personal items over the past few days. She gave Tina another $500 sometime in July to purchase the baby.

She said Tina arrived at her door on Wednesday, carrying the newborn wrapped in a towel.

Curry-Demus said Tina gave her the infant and left. She said she called paramedics because the child needed medical attention for the umbilical cord.

State court records show that Curry-Demus, then known as Andrea Nichole Curry, pleaded guilty in 1991 to aggravated assault and reckless endangerment and was sentenced to 10 years’ probation.

In this Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article, Police investigating discovery of body in Wilkinsburg originally published earlier this afternoon, before the body was found in the apartment, we gain a few other details, first the police had put out a description of “Tina” as they were still searching for her:

“We’re looking for the young lady that gave birth,” said Chief Coleman. “What we need is anybody who has seen, heard or knows this young lady to contact us immediately” at 412-244-2913. The woman’s name is “Tina” according to Ms. Curry-Demus, and she is described as a black woman in her 20s, about 5 feet 3 inches. “She is, we feel, in danger, because she needs medical help,” said Chief Coleman, adding that information from Ms. Curry-Demus is “very sketchy,” and doesn’t include the woman’s last name or where she lives.

We also find the other apartment that police searched earlier was also on Ella Street:

Chief Coleman said officers had earlier checked an apartment on Ella Street, but it may not have been Ms. Curry-Demus’. They found nothing there, she said.

This KDKA.com piece Neighbors Stunned By Allegations In Baby Case (filed at 4:50pm, today, July 18th,’08) gives us a picture of Andrea:

The article itself provides many new details. First we learn that Andrea’s mother’s house is apparently “just a short distance from her own.” (IF this is the ‘other apartment’ on Ella Street, this then could be the home Andrea’s sister misdirected the police to.)

Again mention of the spectacle of all the trappings of a baby shower, and preparations for a baby boy at the home, (how she knew the sex of “Tina’s” baby remains a question, it suggests previous knowledge of “Tina” and her likely haven gotten some medical diagnostics at some point in the pregnancy):

On the front porch of Andrea Curry-Demus’s mother’s home just a short distance from her own, baby shower decorations remain today heralding the expectation of a baby boy to come.

One stunned neighbor says, “Everybody in her community came to her baby shower, with gifts and stuff, we really thought she was pregnant, she was even showing., her stomach was big I thought she was really having a baby.”

That was about a month ago, around the same time Curry-Demus told police last night after her arrest that she had a miscarriage which she knew would be devastating to her mother. “She didn’t want to tell her initially,” says Detective Rich Grande of the Wilkinsburg Police. “That could be a motive behind this whole thing.”

Curry-Demus apparently has created multiple versions of a birth mythos, first claiming that she (Andrea) had given birth (supposedly prematurely) and then later, contradicting herself, claiming she had had a miscarriage and arranged payment to “Tina” who upon giving birth then according to Andrea showed up at her apartment with the child (wrapped in a towel.) Clearly with the discovery of the body at Andrea’s apartment, something else perhaps with or without some aspects of these stories woven in happened:

Curry-Demus told police last night she sought out another pregnant woman and made a $1,000-deal to buy the baby when it was born. Detective Grande says the money was paid in advance. When the baby was born on Wednesday, Curry-Demus told police the birth mother delivered the boy to her apartment on Ella Street with its umbilical chord still attached.

After the determination is made at the hospital that Curry-Demus was not the biological mother, the police learned that she had a previous history under the name “Andrea Curry”:

When she was confronted police say Curry-Demus spelled out the baby buying scheme but could not identify the birth mother beyond the name “Tina.”

It was only then police learned that in 1990 when she was still Andrea Curry she pleaded guilty to stabbing a woman in a failed attempt to seal her infant. The next day she was accused of abducting a new born from Childrens Hospital. She was sentenced to 10 years probation on the assault charge.

She was being held (as of this afternoon) in the Allegheny County Jail:

Andrea Curry-Demus is in the Allegheny County Jail being held on $10,000 cash bond and awaiting a mental health evaluation.

The news of the (Mother’s?) body being found by police broke this evening in the six (pm) o’clock hour. (See Cops: Body at home of woman who claimed baby buy AP, July 18th, ‘08, posted at 6:47)

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Police searched Friday for the mother of a newborn brought into a hospital by a woman they say first claimed she had given birth, then said she had paid $1,000 for the child. Authorities are concerned that the infant’s mother might be in danger or need medical attention.

Andrea Curry-Demus, who said she bought the baby after befriending the pregnant woman, has been charged with child endangerment. In 1991 she pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and received 10 years’ probation after stabbing a woman in a suspected plot to steal the woman’s infant.

“I’m sure there is concern that there could be an injured woman somewhere or if there’s a woman seeking treatment for her follow-up care after giving birth,” Pittsburgh police Cmdr. Thomas Stangrecki said Friday.

Be sure to see the rest of the article for more.

In this following piece we learn that Andrea Curry-Demus showed up at the hospital with the baby on Wednesday. Police searched an apartment that was passed off as hers by her sister on Thursday night. Today, (Friday) reporters called 911 “after smelling a foul odor coming from her apartment and seeing hundreds of flies buzzing behind the windows. ” At some point after the call, Police arrived at the correct apartment and found a body:

Body found in Wilkinsburg home of baby snatcher Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, July 18th, ‘08

Authorities found a body inside the Wilkinsburg apartment of a woman who showed up at a Pittsburgh hospital this week with a newborn baby that isn’t hers.

Allegheny County police homicide detectives are at the Wilkinsburg home of Andrea Curry-Demus, 38, who was arrested after trying to pass the baby boy off as her own at West Penn Hospital in Bloomfield on Wednesday.

Police Chief Ophelia “Cookie” Coleman said authorities found a body face-down in a third-floor bedroom with hands duct-taped behind its back.

Wilkinsburg police claimed they had searched the Ella Street apartment Thursday night but reporters called 911 this afternoon after smelling a foul odor coming from the apartment and seeing hundreds of flies buzzing behind the windows.

Coleman said police were misled by Curry-Demus’ sister, who showed them the wrong apartment, which they searched earlier.

How the police were apparently unable to figure out Curry-Demus’ correct address while the media certainly could remains an unanswered question.

The police had apparently become increasingly concerned for the womyn who gave birth to the child (who arrived at the hospital with the umbilical cord still attached) over the course of the intervening days:

Wilkinsburg police had put out a bulletin asking law enforcement and hospitals in a 30-mile radius to keep an eye out for a woman who just gave birth and might be going by the name of “Tina.”

Coleman said concern for the infant’s mother intensified after investigators learned about Curry’s criminal history.

“After this woman’s past came to our attention we become very worried,” Coleman said.

Curry-Demus pleaded guilty in 1990 to aggravated assault after stabbing a Wilkinsburg woman in what authorities said was a plot to steal her infant.

The day after the stabbing, Curry-Demus abducted an infant from her room at Children’s Hospital. The baby was uninjured when police found her at Curry’s home the next day.

The story goes on to detail other charges Curry Demus had faced in the years between her initial attempt at baby taking (back in 1990) and this one:

Curry-Demus also pleaded guilty to retail theft charges in 2004 and 2006, according to court records.

Also see:

Mom Wannabes Who’ll Stop at Nothing ABC News, July 18th, ‘08

This was one of a string of similar incidents that mental health experts say shed light on the rare phenomenon of females with a pathological desire to obtain a baby at any cost.

and

And this isn’t the first time she’s been tied to such a crime. She was charged 18 years ago in a plot to steal another woman’s infant, police told the AP.

Curry-Demus pleaded guilty in 1991 to aggravated assault after stabbing a Wilkinsburg woman in an alleged plot to steal the woman’s infant. Curry-Demus, then known as Andrea Curry, was sentenced to 10 years’ probation.