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Woman tried to cut baby out of neighbor-police

Posted on: Thursday, 13 October 2005, 16:58 CDT

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.

Source: REUTERS

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