Washington Woman Killed, Fetus Cut from Womb
A heterosexual 23-year-old Kennewick, Washington woman, Phiengchai Sisouvanh Synhavong, was arrested on June 29 for the murder of Araceli Camacho Gomez.
The Associated Press reports that Araceli Camacho Gomez’s body was found in Columbia Park in Kennewick. Gomez, bound with yarn, suffered stab wounds to the chest and trauma to the abdomen, with evidence that a fetus had been removed.
Police allege that on Friday night Phiengchai Sisouvanh Synhavong dialed 911 and tried to pass a baby boy off as her own. The child is currently in critical condition on life support at Deaconess Medical Center in Spokane, Washington. Police found incriminating evidence in Phiengchai Sisouvanh Synhavong’s purse including a box cutter, bloody gloves, a baby bottle and yarn. A local NBC affiliate, KNDU, has reported that Phiengchai Sisouvanh Synhavong told a friend that she was nine months pregnant. Her friend did not doubt she was pregnant because she did appear to be pregnant when she saw her.
Other Cases of Murder or Attempted Murder to steal fetuses
Practicing het Lisa Montgomery confessed to strangling 23-year-old Bobbie Jo Stinnett, cutting her baby from her womb and then telling her husband she had given birth. The child, a baby girl, was later reunited with her father.
Near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 2005, another case of a jealous cousin led to an emergency birth of a baby. Police report that Valerie Lynn Oskin’s cousin, outspoken heterosexual Peggy Jo Conner, hit her over the head with a ball bat and then drove her to a remote area on a dirt road and cut her abdomen with a razor blade. Luckily for Oskin, someone on a four-wheeler called police and Oskin was taken to the hospital while her cousin was arrested. Unlike the Araceli Camacho Gomez case, however, this story has a happy ending. Doctors performed an emergency Cesarean delivery and both Oskin and the baby survived.
In another horrific case, 23-year-old Jimella Tunstall was murdered by a confessed heterosexual friend, Tiffany Hall, who cut her fetus from her womb. The infant, who did not survive, was passed off as her own and was given a funeral. Hall picked up the three older children from their father’s a few days after the murder of their mother, and then drowned them. She then stuffed the children into the washer and dryer units at their home. Hall, who premeditated the murder of Jimella Tunstall, pled guilty to the murders and will spend life in prison. Her plea deal saves her from the death penalty.
Updated:
IL Tiffany Hall pleads guilty to murder of Jimella Tunstall, three children
Tue 10 Jun 2008
From the Belleville [IL] News-Democrat–
Tiffany Hall imprisoned for life; plea deal saves her from death penalty
BY BETH HUNDSDORFER
News-Democrat
A week before she knocked her friend Jimella Tunstall unconscious and stripped her unborn baby from her womb, Tiffany Hall bought items for a makeshift birth kit: scissors, alcohol and a bulb syringe.
Three days after removing the fetus and killing Tunstall, Hall got the murdered woman’s three children and drowned them one at a time in the bathtub where she killed their mother.
Hall pleaded guilty Monday to four counts of first-degree murder and received four sentences of natural life in prison without parole for the deaths of Tunstall and her children, along with 60 years for the intentional homicide of Tunstall’s unborn child.
“The kids? It didn’t have to happen. None of it had to, but the kids….,” said St. Clair County State’s Attorney Robert Haida said. He added that Hall didn’t provide any motive for killing DeMond, 7, Ivan, 2 1/2 and Jinella, 1 1/2.
At a hearing Monday on the plea agreement, Haida outlined the details of the crime.
Hall planned for weeks to kill Tunstall and take her unborn child, Haida said, but the plan went awry when the little girl she eventually named “Taylor Horne” was stillborn on Sept. 15, 2006, due to being cut from the womb. Hall took the baby’s body to Frank Holten State Park and called Illinois State Police, telling them she gave birth to the child after she was raped.
St. Clair County Circuit Judge Milton Wharton asked Hall on Monday if she would tell him, in her own words, what the sentence meant.
“I will never get out,” Hall responded in a soft voice.
Haida had announced his intention to seek the death penalty against Hall, if she was convicted of the murders. But he and Assistant State’s Attorney Jim Piper about a month ago cemented the deal for life in prison after they were approached by Hall’s defense attorneys, Jim Gomric and Jim Stern.
“In this circumstance, I don’t know if there are any winners,” Gomric said. “There are degrees of losing.”
Tunstall’s family members expressed opposition to the death penalty, Haida said, and the proceedings stressed the grieving family.
When she walked into the courtroom, Hall looked around the courtroom packed with the victims’ family members, reporters, Illinois State Police investigators, command staff and crime-scene technicians, and East St. Louis Police investigators, but didn’t show any emotion.
Sandra Myers, Tunstall’s mother, trembled and clutched a tissue as Hall took her seat.
Hall had a funeral for the baby on Sept. 18, 2006. But Hall confessed to her boyfriend, Keith Horne, that she was not the baby’s mother, and that she killed Tunstall to get the baby. Tunstall’s body was found in high weeds near Hall’s home. Earlier that day, Hall lied to Ivan Collins, the father of Tunstall’s children, telling him Tunstall wanted her children and her car. That allowed Hall to pick up DeMond, Ivan and Jinella. Hall drowned them, then hid their naked bodies in a
washer and dryer in Tunstall’s apartment in the John DeShields housing complex.
Illinois State Police arrested Hall that night.
East St. Louis and Illinois State Police found the children’s bodies two days later.
As Haida described the crime, Myers, overcome with emotion, left the courtroom hand-in-hand with Illinois State Police Detective David Bivens. She returned, trembling.
“I’m going to have deal with this the rest of my life,” Myers said after the hearing. “I’m going to put it in God’s hands. I have to forgive her. We all make mistakes. We all will need forgiveness. Being a spiritual person, I have to find a way to forgive.”
Hall, 26, had only one previous felony conviction, for retail theft.
But her young life was troubled. Adjudicated as a juvenile delinquent at 14, Hall failed to keep a curfew, failed to appear for drug tests and didn’t attend school. At 16, Hall gave birth to her first child. A year later, she delivered her second.
Hall lost custody of her daughters in 1999 after a court found evidence her 2-month-old daughter was abused.
In 2001, both girls were returned to Hall’s care. They returned to foster care after Hall was arrested for the murders.
Hall, who Gomric said is mildly retarded and suffers from mild mental illness, wore shackles and shuffled out of the courtroom. She never looked back at spectators.
Contact reporter Beth Hundsdorfer at bhundsdorfer @bnd.com or 239-2570.
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