38 year-old Andrea Curry-Demus showed up at the West Penn Hospital in Pittsburgh on Thursday with a newborn baby, first claiming it was her child, then claiming she bought the baby for $1,000. Yesterday police found a dead body at Curry-Demus' apartment.
Upon examination of the woman, the doctors became suspicious when the baby appeared to be full term and Curry-Demus did not appear to have just given birth, so they contacted authorities.
According to the criminal complaint filed, Curry-Demus later admitted that she had miscarried and didn't want her mother to know, so she befriended another pregnant woman, who she called Tina, paid her $1,000 to purchase the infant.
Curry-Demus claims that "Tina" showed up at her doorstep with the newborn in her arms and gave the baby to her and left.
Reporters descended on the apartment building where Curry-Demus lived and reported to the police that there was a "foul smell and swarms of flies in the apartment's windows."
Police arrived and discovered a dead body, face down and her wrists bound with duct tape.
According to the Medical examiner, the the woman had been dead for at least 24 hours prior to her discovery.
Curry-Demus is charged with endangering a child along with other charges, which will be updated as the investigation continues.
What disturbs many is that this is not the first time she has stolen a baby.
Curry-Demus had suffered two prior miscarriages and in June of 1991 she was charged, plead guilty and sentenced to 3-10 years in prison on a variety of charges, including the kidnapping of a 3 week0old 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.
That child was found with her the next day, unharmed.
Curry-Demus is not the only one that has had previous problems with the law. She recently married Raymond Demus Jr who is facing rape charges after being accused of molesting the daughter of his former girlfriend.
Neighbors say that they had believed that she was still pregnant after her miscarriage.
Initially, during a press conference, the police Chief Ophelia Coleman, said, "We searched the apartment, and it didn't look like anyone had been there for a few days. Nothing was out of place, and there was nothing to lead us to believe anything violent happened there, or that a birth happened there."
Yet after the body was found in the apartment, Coleman later admitted that the apartment had not been searched and that the apartment building had been "visited".
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