Dynel Lane with her husband. She had told him she had miscarried when he found her in the bath with an infant gasping for air. Photo / Facebook
Dynel Lane with her husband. She had told him she had miscarried when he found her in the bath with an infant gasping for air. Photo / Facebook
The husband of a woman who allegedly sliced an unborn baby from a seven-months' pregnant victim found the infant gasping for air in their bathtub.
Murder charges for Dynel Catrece Lane, 34, depend on whether the child was alive outside of the 26-year-old expectant mother's womb, the district attorney's office said on Thursday. An autopsy for the baby has been scheduled for Friday. The 26-year-old survived the attack.
Lane, who has two daughters, has been held on $US2million bail after a brief hearing at Boulder County Jail, Colorado on Thursday.
The suspect allegedly lured the woman to her Longmont home with a Craigslist ad for baby clothes on Wednesday. The victim, who has been identified only as Michelle, arrived at the home shortly before midday. She was stabbed with a broken glass, cut open and had her baby pulled from her abdomen in the attack.
A police report on Thursday read: "The person who did the incision would have to have researched the subject of Cesarean Births to achieve the level of accuracy."
The suspect's husband found the baby in the bathtub still breathing and rushed his wife to hospital after she told him she had suffered a miscarriage, according to the police report.
Lane carried the victim's dead baby to hospital and staff that she had suffered a miscarriage. She refused to be examined by staff and later admitted to police she had cut open another woman's womb.
Meanwhile, the 26-year-old victim managed to call 911 while she lay bleeding heavily in the basement of the cul-de-sac home.
During the desperate six-minute call, she faintly told the dispatcher: "She cut me in the stomach... I'm pregnant... I'm bleeding out."
The woman was able to give the dispatcher the address, adding that she was in the basement and had locked the door.
She has multiple wounds, the victim said, and the attacker broke a glass and stabbed her in the neck as she was trying to leave.
Dynel Lyne is accused of stabbing a pregnant woman in the stomach and removing her baby. Photo / AP
She was rescued by emergency responders who heard her calling for help. She was taken to the hospital, underwent surgery and survived. Lane was facing charges of first-degree attempted murder, first-degree assault, and child abuse knowingly and recklessly resulting in death, the Boulder District Attorney's Office confirmed on Thursday.
She did not appear at her brief court hearing.
The Denver Post reported that hospital staff said the baby would have been viable.
Covered in blood
Police are looking for any other mothers who may have responded to Lane's ad for baby clothes.
The District Attorney could not confirm on Thursday whether mental illness was a factor.
The husband told police that he had come home to take his wife to a doctor's appointment and found her covered in blood. He then found the baby in the bathtub.
"He rubbed the baby slightly then rolled it over to hear and see it take a gasping breath," according to the arrest affidavit, The Denver Post reported.
Comments on Lane's social media referred to a pregnancy last year. She reportedly showed her daughters a sonogram picture in December and told them she was having a boy.
KDVR reported on Wednesday that a baby registry was set up in Lane's name last year and listed her due date as November 14, 2014. The clothing in the baby registry was for a boy.
Longmont Police arrive at the scene of a stabbing. Photo / AP
Public records revealed that Lane held a certified license as a nurse aide which expired in 2012.
A relative said on Thursday that Lane had lost a child of her own more than a decade ago when he accidentally drowned.
Lane's son was 19 months old in 2002, when he drowned in a shallow pond at the home of her parents near Pueblo, Colorado. Investigators at the time ruled the death an accident.
Lane and her now ex-husband were devastated by the child's death, said Aaron Cruz, the boy's paternal grandfather.
The couple had two daughters together and had been trying for a boy.
A July 2002 obituary for Lane's son, Michael Alexander Cruz, in the Pueblo Chieftan said the boy loved playing with his sisters, cousins and friends and had just learn to sing his first song, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.
Homicide charges
Lane's then-husband wasn't home at the time of the drowning, the newspaper reported at the time. She and their two daughters, then five and three, searched for the boy until they found him in the fish pond.
He had been playing a game with his sisters while their mother was busy in another part of the house, the newspaper said.
Lane also lost her grandmother earlier this month, according to her social media posts.
According to social media, Lane had remarried and was assistant manager at a franchise of a company, Once Upon A Child, which buys and sells "gently-used" children's clothing.
After speaking to the victim, police were able to arrest Lane at the hospital at 7.46pm on Wednesday.
Police entered the suspect's home on Wednesday night after obtaining a search warrant.
Under Colorado law, the charges were complicated by the fact if a child was not born alive, then homicide charges could not be brought.
The Boulder County DA's office does not expect to file charges until next week.
Investigators have not released the name of the 26-year-old victim but said they did not know each other.
