Woman in W.Pa. baby mystery identified


ASSOCIATED PRESS

9:03 a.m. July 20, 2008

PITTSBURGH – The woman whose body was found with her uterus cut open and who appeared to have been pregnant has been positively identified as an 18-year-old, the Allegheny County medical examiner said Sunday.
Dr. Karl Williams, the medical examiner, said the identity of 18-year-old Kia Johnson was confirmed with dental records. She is from McKeesport, just outside Pittsburgh.

Johnson's body was found Friday in the Wilkinsburg apartment of Andrea Curry-Demus.

Investigators are trying to verify whether Johnson was the mother of a baby boy that Curry-Demus, 38, took to a Pittsburgh hospital Thursday. Police say Curry-Demus falsely claimed the baby was her own, then later said she had bought the baby.

The medical examiner had said there were indications that the victim was pregnant.

“The uterus appeared gravid, which means that there had been a baby there,” Williams said at a news conference Saturday. Detectives found placenta at the scene, he said.

The baby was “apparently doing well,” Williams said Saturday. The hospital would not release any information about the boy's condition.

Curry-Demus was charged with child endangerment and dealing in infant children, and ordered jailed in lieu of $10,000 bail and a psychiatric exam.

Further charges are expected, Allegheny County Police Assistant Superintendent James Morton said Saturday.

In 1990, Curry-Demus, then known as Andrea Curry, was accused of stabbing a woman in an alleged plot to steal the woman's infant. A day after that stabbing, Curry-Demus snatched a 3-week-old baby girl from a hospital. The baby was found unharmed with Curry-Demus at her home the next day.

Curry-Demus pleaded guilty in 1991 to various charges from both incidents and got three to 10 years in prison, according to court records. She was paroled in August 1998.