Street Gang Life

The Milwaukee woman who brutally killed a pregnant mother and tried to steal her full-term fetus last year has been found guilty of murder. A jury of six men and six women deliberated for about an hour before convicting Annette Morales-Rodriguez, 34, of two counts of first-degree intentional homicide in the October 2011 deaths of the mother and fetus. She faces a mandatory life sentence when she is sentenced Dec. 14, although a judge could allow for the possibility of parole. Wisconsin doesn’t have the death penalty.

GUILTY

Prosecutors said Morales-Rodriguez faked a pregnancy, panicked as her supposed due date approached and then lured 23-year-old Maritza Ramirez-Cruz to her house. There, she attacked her and used an X-Acto knife to cut the fetus out, according to the criminal complaint. Ramirez-Cruz died of blood loss and asphyxiation, and her fetus, a boy, died as a result of her death, authorities say. Morales-Rodriguez’s defense attorneys didn’t deny that she attacked Ramirez-Cruz. But they argued that the deaths of the mother and fetus weren’t intentional because Morales-Rodriguez didn’t intend for anyone to die. Morales-Rodriguez did not testify during the trial, and her attorneys did not call any witnesses. The strongest evidence against Morales-Rodriguez was a videotaped interview she gave to police in which she recounted the attack. She explained to investigators that she was desperate to give her boyfriend a son but that she couldn’t ‘stay pregnant.’ She said she twice pretended to be pregnant, only to claim each time that she miscarried. When she lied about a third pregnancy, she considered another scenario: killing a pregnant woman and stealing her baby.

She described how she went to a Hispanic community center and found Ramirez-Cruz, a mother of three who was in her 40th week of pregnancy. Morales-Rodriguez told police she bashed Ramirez-Cruz in the head with a baseball bat, then choked her until she passed out. She said she then put duct tape over the younger woman’s eyes and nose and wrapped a plastic bag around her head. She then used a small blade to slice the victim open from hip to hip and pulled out a stillborn boy, Morales-Rodriguez said in the videotape. She then called 911, telling a dispatcher she had just given birth to a baby who wasn’t breathing. In the ensuing investigation and autopsy, a medical examiner found evidence that the baby wasn’t the product of a natural birth. A subsequent examination verified Morales-Rodriguez hadn’t given birth. Police later found Ramirez-Cruz’s body in Moralez-Rodriguez’s basement, according to the criminal complaint.