Woman in Colorado fetus attack charged with attempted murder

BOULDER, Colo. — A Colorado woman who police say admitted to cutting a fetus from a stranger was charged with attempted murder and unlawful termination of a pregnancy on Friday, after the coroner said an autopsy showed no evidence the unborn child survived outside the victim’s womb.

A spokeswoman for the Boulder County district attorney had earlier said Dynel Catrece Lane, 34, would not be charged with murder in last week’s attack on Michelle Wilkins, 26, who said she was lured to Lane’s home by an online ad for baby clothes.

Wilkins, who was seven-months pregnant, survived, but Boulder County Coroner Emma Hall said neither an autopsy nor the investigation found the fetus had shown any signs of life outside the womb, and therefore it is not considered a live birth.

“No evidence of trauma or injuries were found on the body,” Hall said in a statement.

Lane, who is being held on a $2 million bond, was formally charged with eight criminal counts during a brief court appearance at Boulder County jail on Friday.

She faces between 16 and 48 years in prison if convicted of first-degree attempted murder, and between 10 and 32 years on the unlawful termination of pregnancy charge.

Police in Longmont, 30 miles north of Denver, said officers responding to a 911 emergency call from Wilkins on March 18 found her stabbed and beaten in the basement of the home Lane shared with her husband.

Slipping in and out of consciousness, the victim told them her attacker had “removed” her baby.

According to an arrest warrant affidavit, Lane’s husband, David Ridley, believed his wife was pregnant. He found his wife covered in blood upstairs, and when he asked her what happened, Lane told him she had miscarried her baby. Ridley told police he found the fetus in the couple’s bathtub.

He then drove his wife and the fetus to a hospital, where Lane ultimately admitted cutting Wilkins and removing the baby, the affidavit said.

In a statement, the victim’s family said she had suffered a brutal attack in which she was beaten, cut and strangled before her unborn daughter was taken out with “an ordinary kitchen knife” and she was left for dead.