Woman to stand trial after bizarre explanation
PITTSBURGH (AP) — A woman accused of killing a pregnant woman and cutting her infant from her womb was ordered to stand trial Friday after a detective recounted her bizarre explanation of how she wound up with another woman’s child.
Prosecutors contend Andrea Curry-Demus, 39, met a pregnant Kia Johnson at the Allegheny County Jail last month while each was visiting other inmates and then somehow lured the 18-year-old to her apartment to steal the baby from her womb.
According to court records, Curry-Demus was obsessed with getting an infant. In May 1990, she stabbed one woman in an apparent plot to steal her newborn and the next day kidnapped another baby from a hospital, according to the documents.
Allegheny County homicide detective Thomas DeFelice testified that he questioned Curry-Demus on July 18 about why authorities searching her apartment found Johnson’s body — bound with duct tape and wrapped in plastic wrap and a comforter — stuffed under a headboard with plastic wrap in her mouth.
Curry-Demus responded that “she didn’t know the girl had died,” DeFelice said.
Curry-Demus then told him:
She had been pregnant, but lost the baby in June and became depressed. When she told a girlfriend what happened, the friend said she would get her a baby.
On July 15, the friend, a man and a pregnant woman she’d never met before arrived at her apartment in Wilkinsburg, just outside Pittsburgh.
The man gave the woman pain pills, then left the apartment. He returned the next morning and took the pregnant woman into the bathroom along with some towels, plastic wrap and strips of duct tape. Curry-Demus heard some moans, and then the man emerged with a baby.
Assistant District Attorney Mark Tranquilli discounted Curry-Demus’ story.
“I think the evidence would support a theory that Kia, for whatever reason, was lured back to the apartment of Curry-Demus, was there incapacitated and basically, her baby was harvested,” Tranquilli said. “I think it’s readily apparent that nobody else was in that apartment except Curry-Demus and poor Kia Johnson.”
Curry-Demus’ account also is at odds with the testimony of her own sister.
Brooke Curry, who lived across the hall from her sister, testified Friday that she thought her sister was pregnant and a couple weeks overdue. Curry-Demus had been thrown a baby shower, set up a nursery and even shown off a sonogram, Curry said.
Curry spent several hours with her sister the evening of July 15 and Curry-Demus was complaining of contractions, Curry said.
The next morning, Curry-Demus phoned and said she gave birth in her tub, Curry testified. Brooke Curry said she dashed across the hall and saw her sister with a baby boy, his eyes open, umbilical cord still attached and bubbles coming out of his mouth. He seemed sluggish and Curry-Demus had blood around her crotch, the sister said.
Curry dialed 911 and two paramedics arrived to take her sister to a hospital, where hospital workers became suspicious and called police.
Curry-Demus phoned her sister the next day and admitted the baby wasn’t hers. She told her sister she had bought the baby for $1,000.