Woman tried to cut baby out of neighbor-police

By Jonathan Barnes

PITTSBURGH (Reuters) – A Pennsylvania woman was charged on
Thursday with beating her pregnant neighbor with a baseball bat
and slashing her lower abdomen with a razor in an attempt to
steal the unborn baby.

Pennsylvania State Police said Peggy Jo Conner attacked her
neighbor, Valerie Oskin, in Oskin’s trailer early Wednesday.
Conner then drove Oskin, who was eight months pregnant, about
15 miles to a remote area and tried to cut through a C-section
scar on her abdomen with a razor blade. Oskin has a 7-year-old
son.

Oskin, 30, was found by a passerby and taken to a
Pittsburgh hospital, where she delivered a healthy boy by
Caesarean section on Thursday, authorities said. She remained
hospitalized in critical condition.

“It appears that the primary motive was to get the child,”
Armstrong County District Attorney Scott Andreassi said.
Conner, the mother of three, had told people she was pregnant,
Andreassi said.

The two women were discovered by a teen-ager riding an
all-terrain vehicle, and Conner tried to flee, authorities
said.

Judging from the amount of blood in the trailer, in the car
and at the scene, Conner hit Oskin numerous times and seriously
fractured her skull, Andreassi said.

“The trailer looked like a homicide scene,” he said.

Conner, 38, was charged with attempted homicide, aggravated
assault and aggravated assault on an unborn child.

She was arraigned and held without bail.