BATMAN
10-13-2005, 04:04 PM
A woman hit her pregnant neighbor over the head with a baseball bat, drove her to a secluded area and cut her belly in an attempt to steal her baby that was thwarted only at the last minute, authorities said.
Police said Wednesday’s attack on Valerie Oskin was stopped before her baby was taken only because a teenager on an all-terrain vehicle came across the women in the woods.
Peggy Jo Conner, 38, of Ford City, was arraigned Thursday on charges of attempted homicide, aggravated assault and aggravated assault of an unborn child. She was being held without bond.
http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Video/051013/n_pregnantwoman_attacked_051013.300w.jpg
An emergency Caesarean section was performed on Oskin, 30, at Allegheny General Hospital. State police said Thursday that the baby was in stable condition and the mother was in the trauma ward, but hospital officials said they couldn’t release any information about either patient.
State police said that after hitting Oskin, Conner drove her about 15 miles to a secluded, wooded area in Armstrong County, about 50 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, and cut Oskin across her abdomen.
“She was sliced over an old (Caesarean) scar and severely bleeding,” Trooper Jonathan Bayer said. She probably would have bled to death had the teenager not found her when he did, Bayer said.
Conner told the 17-year-old boy that Oskin was fine, but he called his father, who notified police.
Bayer said he believed Oskin was in her third trimester of pregnancy.
Last December, a Kansas woman was accused of strangling Bobbie Jo Stinnett, a 23-year-old who was eight months pregnant, at her Missouri home and cutting Stinnett’s baby daughter from her womb. Prosecutors have said Lisa Montgomery showed the baby off as her own before her arrest. The infant went home with her now-widowed father and Montgomery’s trial is set for next April.
Police said Wednesday’s attack on Valerie Oskin was stopped before her baby was taken only because a teenager on an all-terrain vehicle came across the women in the woods.
Peggy Jo Conner, 38, of Ford City, was arraigned Thursday on charges of attempted homicide, aggravated assault and aggravated assault of an unborn child. She was being held without bond.
http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Video/051013/n_pregnantwoman_attacked_051013.300w.jpg
An emergency Caesarean section was performed on Oskin, 30, at Allegheny General Hospital. State police said Thursday that the baby was in stable condition and the mother was in the trauma ward, but hospital officials said they couldn’t release any information about either patient.
State police said that after hitting Oskin, Conner drove her about 15 miles to a secluded, wooded area in Armstrong County, about 50 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, and cut Oskin across her abdomen.
“She was sliced over an old (Caesarean) scar and severely bleeding,” Trooper Jonathan Bayer said. She probably would have bled to death had the teenager not found her when he did, Bayer said.
Conner told the 17-year-old boy that Oskin was fine, but he called his father, who notified police.
Bayer said he believed Oskin was in her third trimester of pregnancy.
Last December, a Kansas woman was accused of strangling Bobbie Jo Stinnett, a 23-year-old who was eight months pregnant, at her Missouri home and cutting Stinnett’s baby daughter from her womb. Prosecutors have said Lisa Montgomery showed the baby off as her own before her arrest. The infant went home with her now-widowed father and Montgomery’s trial is set for next April.