Trial opens in murder, kidnapping from womb case

admin Contributor
Font Size:

PITTSBURGH (AP) — A woman accused of cutting a baby from a pregnant teenager, killing her, and passing the baby off as her own, had not been pregnant, even though she told her family she was, according to a prosecutor and her doctor.

Andrea Curry-Demus, 40, put her name on an ultrasound picture of a fetus and gave it to her mother, who threw a baby shower for her.

Her mother, Sharon Curry, testified at her daughter’s trial on homicide and kidnapping charges Monday that she was excited at learning she would be a grandmother for the first time in late fall 2007.

“I was on cloud nine,” she testified. “I was very, very happy.”

But while a doctor told Curry-Demus, of Wilkinsburg, a Pittsburgh suburb, that she may be pregnant based on a urine test, a blood test showed she was not. Dr. Karen Velazquez testified Curry-Demus was not pregnant.

While Curry-Demus held herself out to be pregnant, she plotted to get a baby, according to prosecutor Mark Tranquilli.

That happened when she met and befriended Kia Johnson, 18, of McKeesport, at the Allegheny County Jail, in July 2008. Johnson was visiting her unborn son’s father and Curry-Demus was visiting her husband. Curry-Demus lured Johnson to her apartment to steal the baby, Tranquilli said.

Johnson’s body — bound with duct tape and wrapped in plastic wrap and a comforter — was found stuffed behind a headboard. The baby, Terrell Kian Johnson, survived and is living with relatives.

Johnson’s mother and father were in court, her mother wiping back tears, but had to leave when Tranquilli described how Johnson was found.

After hiding Johnson’s body, Curry-Demus told her mother and sister that she gave birth in her bathroom. When hospital tests showed she did not give birth, Curry-Demus told police that she bought the baby for $1,000 from a young woman she knew as Tina, according to testimony.

Curry-Demus said she bought Tina clothes “because of the kindness of my heart,” according to her taped confession played in court.

Investigators eventually found Johnson’s body after initially being misled by Curry-Demus’ sister, Brooke Curry, who had shown them her own apartment and told them it was that of Curry-Demus. The sisters lived in different apartments in the apartment building.

Tranquilli said Brooke Curry had nothing to do with Johnson’s death and lied to help her sister, not knowing the truth. Brooke Curry is expected to testify Tuesday.

Defense attorney Christopher Patarini will try to convince an Allegheny County judge that Curry-Demus is not guilty by reason of insanity. She chose last week to have Judge Jeffrey Manning decide her case rather than a jury.

Patarini told Manning that Curry-Demus has a history of mental problems and that a defense psychiatrist will testify that she was preoccupied with delusions of being pregnant. Curry-Demus had a “break with reality,” he said, and how she went about getting a baby was consistent with her severe psychosis.

Tranquilli acknowledged that Curry-Demus has mental problems but said he would show that she knew what she was doing was wrong.

He said Curry-Demus sliced the baby from Johnson while she was still alive and that Johnson died of combination of blood loss and suffocation. Curry-Demus wrapped Johnson’s head in plastic and duct tape, which showed she intended to kill her, he said.

Curry-Demus had served about eight years in prison for kidnapping another woman’s baby in May 1990. Because that woman had testified against Curry-Demus, “She knew she could not leave Kia Johnson alive,” Tranquilli said.

He told Manning that the proper verdict would be guilty of first- or second-degree murder, but mentally ill. That would mean Curry-Demus would undergo mental health treatment and serve her life-sentence in either a mental facility or prison.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel