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In a brutal and horrifying attack in Colorado, a woman’s fetus was cut out of her body after she was lured to her attacker’s home after answering an ad on Craigslist. Before the fetus died, the woman who so brutally attacked the mom-to-be, Dynel Lane, 34,tried to pass the baby off as her own.
The horrifying case began when a 26-year-old woman (whose name has not been officially released but who was called Michelle by the 911 dispatcher) responded to a sale offer on Craigslist. The woman was seven months pregnant and the ad was for baby clothes. The pregnant woman visited the seller’s home in Longmount, Colorado on Wednesday afternoon.
At some point during the visit, the pregnant woman was stabbed and cut open, and her fetus was expertly removed by Lane.
Lane’s husband, 35-year-old David Ridley, left work the same day and went to his home in preparation to take his wife to a prenatal appointment. He and Lane’s whole family were under the impression that she was pregnant. She had shown them a picture of a baby boy’s ultrasound in December. The couple has two teenaged daughters, and one admitted to investigators that “she could not tell Dynel was pregnant and [she] was very petite,” according to a police report.
Once Ridley was inside the home, Lane approached him “covered in blood,” according to police documents. She told him she has miscarried her baby and that it was in the bathtub upstairs. Ridley went to the bathtub and saw the stabbed woman’s baby. “He rubbed the baby slightly then rolled it over to … see it take a gasping breath,” the report read.
Meanwhile, the formerly pregnant woman was still in the home, according to reports. She was able to call the police and explain between shortness of breath that she had been cut.
“She cut me,” the injured woman told the operator.
“Who cut you?” asked the operator.
The woman responded, “I don’t know.”
The operator then asked if the woman was cut in the stomach, and the victim responded, “Uh-huh. I’m pregnant.”
Before authorities arrived at the home, Riley and Lane left with the baby. The husband drove his wife to Longmont United Hospital, police said. Police approached Lane at the hospital, and upon questioning, she refused to undergo a vaginal examination by medical professionals. Lane soon admitted her heinous act.
“Dynel admitted to Detective Stacey Graham that she cut abdomen open to remove [the victim’s] baby,” the police report noted.
The hospital staff told authorities that the baby was “approximately 7 months old and would have been viable.”
When authorities finally arrived at the home to respond the the injured woman’s call, she was on a bed and a 3-inch knife was found underneath the furniture.
The victim was rushed to the same hospital as Lane. Upon examination, the surgeon found that the cut on her abdomen “appeared to be well performed” and said that “the person who did the incision would have to have researched the subject of cesarean births in books or online to achieve the level of accuracy,” according to the report.
Investigators discovered that Lane became a certified nurse aide in 2010, but her license expired in 2012. According to social media, Lane is currently employed at Once Upon A Child, a children’s clothing franchise which buys and sells ‘gently-used’ apparel.
Lane’s ex-father-in-law told Pueblo Chieftan that the 19-month-old baby boy she had with her ex-husband drowned in 2002. Apparently, she was in another room in a southern Colorado home while her daughters, who were ages 5 and 3 at the time, were playing with the small boy. The girls lost track of the boy, and they and Lane later found him drowned in a fish pond.
The former father-in-law, Michael Alexander Cruz, said that Lane seemed to be a “fine parent.” He and other relatives are stunned by the revelation of her crime.
Lane is being held on a $2 million bond. She was arrested on attempted first-degree murder. Since the baby was technically a fetus, prosecutors have not yet determined whether she can be charged with murder.
“The issue of whether or not murder charges are appropriate involving a case involving the death of a fetus or a late-term pregnancy is always a difficult issue,” Boulder County District Attorney Stanley L. Garnett said.
“Under Colorado law, essentially, there’s no way murder charges can be brought if it’s not established that the fetus lived as a child outside the body of the mother for some period of time. I don’t know the answer yet as to whether that can be established, what our facts are here,” he added.
While the baby did not survive, the woman who was stabbed is said to be recovering.
