OH Police Officer Cutts Sentenced for Murder of His Unborn Baby and Her Mother
On 27Feb08, a jury recommended that Canton OH police officer Bobby Cutts be sentenced to life in prision without parole, for 34 years.
Cutts murdered his 9-month yet-unborn daughter Chloe, and her mother Jessica.
[Right to Life, www.cincinnatirighttolife.org. Cincinnati Right to Life, April 2008]
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West Virginia Man Indicted for Killing Pregnant Girlfriend, Unborn Child
A West Virginia man is the second person to be indicted under a law that provides protection and justice for pregnant women and their unborn children.
The state’s unborn victims law, one of three dozen across the nation, allows prosecutors to hold criminals accountable for killing or injuring both mother and child.
James Louis DeGasperin, a 35 year-old teacher from Preston, is charged with killing his 25 year-old girlfriend Lori Casteel and her unborn child. Casteel, her son Collin, and her unborn baby, were all killed when DeGasperin hit her with a baseball bat and then killed Collin with a shotgun blast.
In addition to his indictment on first degree murder in the deaths of Casteel and Collin, DeGasperin was indicted for first degree murder in the death of the baby as well because Casteel was six months pregnant at the time.
That can happen because the West Virginia legislature, in 2005, approved Senate Bill 146 and it became law that May when Gov. Joe Manchin signed it.
Under the statute, “a pregnant woman and the embryo or fetus she is carrying in the womb constitute separate and distinct victims” for purposes of the state laws governing murder, manslaughter, and certain other crimes of violence.
[31Aug07, Charleston, WV, LifeNews.com]
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A man was convicted 17Oct of 2 counts of first degree murder in the death of his pregnant girlfriend and her unborn baby, after she refused to have an abortion [AP].
Stephen Poaches, 27, who was also dating another woman at the time, was found guilty in a non-jury trial of the strangling death of 24-year-old LaToyia F. and her 5-month unborn child.
Poaches was given a sentence of life prison without the possibility of parole. Assistant DA Vega said Poaches wanted LaToyia to have an abortion, but she refused.
“He did not want this child to be born,” Vega said. In his closing argument for the prosecution, Vega said Poaches had planned the killing over a period of time.
In a statement to police, Poaches said he attacked LaToyia just hours after accompanying her to a medical checkup.
The mother of a 7-year-old girl, LaToyia disappeared in July 2005, in a case that received national attention after a blogger accused the national media of ignoring her disappearance because she was black and Hispanic.
Her body was found a month after her death when a police detective followed Poaches to the vacant lot where he had left her body.
In a similar case in 2004, the husband of a pregnant woman shot and killed her in her car as she was leaving their home in Penn Township, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported Sunday.
Johnathan Tusa has been charged with homicide in the deaths of Dawn T., 21, and her 7-week unborn child.
Assistant DA Christine Studeny said testimony against Tusa will include allegations that he tried to force his wife to have an abortion, in her opening statement to the jury before the Butler County Court.
Dawn left her house early that morning after discovering her husband using cocaine in their bathroom. Telling him he had five minutes to decide if he wanted her and their baby or the drugs, she went out to her car.
Tusa followed and fired 3 shots at the car as she tried to back it out of the driveway–the third shot struck her in the head.
[Philadelphia, G. Schultz, 18Oct06 LifeSiteNews.com; LifeNews.com]
For more cases of violence against pregnant women, visit http://www.prochoiceviolence.com/