Motives
Statistics for pregnancy as being a motivating factor in the murder of a pregnant woman are unavailable at this time. Motives may vary, with a woman's pregnancy at the time of death sometimes being coincidental.
In 2004, Bobbie Jo Stinnett died after Lisa M. Montgomery cut Stinnett's unborn daughter from her womb in an attempt to claim the baby as her own. The two met online in a dog breeding chatroom and Montgomery told Stinnett she was also pregnant. Montgomery later posed as a potential buyer of one of Stinnett's dogs and arranged to meet her. It was at that meeting that Stinnett was murdered. Montgomery then took the baby to the local hospital, claiming to have just given birth to it herself. In July 2008, Araceli Camacho Gomez was found with her hands and feet bound by yarn and massive trauma to her abdomen. Police arrested Phiengchai Sisouvanh Synhavong in connection with the case and charged her with first-degree murder. In her purse were yarn, a boxcutter, and baby items, among other items. In July 2009, Darlene Haynes was found dead in her apartment, her stomach cut open in a way consistent with the removal of a fetus.
Other notable cases include Sharon Tate, victims of the Manson Family murders, Jessie Davis, LaToyia Figueroa, Belinda Temple, Cherica Adams, and Laci Peterson.
Read more about this topic: Murdered Pregnant Women
Famous quotes containing the word motives:
“Poetry, at all times, exercises two distinct functions: it may reveal, it may unveil to every eye, the ideal aspects of common things ... or it may actually add to the number of motives poetic and uncommon in themselves, by the imaginative creation of things that are ideal from their very birth.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)
“We have done scant justice to the reasonableness of cannibalism. There are in fact so many and such excellent motives possible to it that mankind has never been able to fit all of them into one universal scheme, and has accordingly contrived various diverse and contradictory systems the better to display its virtues.”
—Ruth Benedict (1887–1948)
“Single mothers have as much to teach their children as married mothers and as much love to share—maybe more. Yet their motives are often labeled selfish and single-minded—never mind all the babies brought into the world to snag husbands, “save” faltering marriages or produce heirs.”
—Anne Cassidy. “Every Child Should Have a Father But....,” McCall’s (March 1985)