Investigators hope to confirm today the identity of a US woman whose body was found bound with duct tape with her womb cut open in the apartment of another woman who falsely claimed a newborn baby was her own.
The Medical Examiner's office of Allegheny County, in western Pennsylvania, has tentatively identified the victim as Kia Johnson, an investigator at the office who declined to give her name said last night.
Officials hoped to confirm the identity today using dental records.
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported earlier yesterday that Johnson's family had spoken to police. The paper said she was 18 years old and due to deliver July 30.
Allegheny County Police Assistant Superintendent James Morton said investigators were also trying to verify that the dead woman was the mother of a baby brought by Andrea Curry-Demus to West Penn Hospital on Thursday night.
The body was found Friday after authorities were called about a foul odour coming from inside Curry-Demus' Wilkinsburg apartment.
Police had been at the building Thursday night, but did not go into that apartment, Wilkinsburg Police Chief Ophelia Coleman said. Instead, a relative of Curry-Demus led them to another apartment, she said.
The woman appeared to have been dead for about two days, Allegheny County Medical Examiner Dr Karl Williams said. Her hands and feet were bound with duct tape, and her face was covered with a plastic material that had also been secured with duct tape.
The woman had been pregnant and her body showed "evidence that there had been a partial evisceration - meaning her abdomen had been opened with a sharp weapon, the uterus had been opened", Williams said.
Detectives found placenta at the scene.
The cause of death had not been determined, Williams said.
The baby was "apparently doing well" although there had been problems initially with a low heart rate and low temperature associated with blood loss, Williams said. The hospital would not release any information about the child.
According to police, Curry-Demus showed up at the hospital Thursday with a newborn who still had the umbilical cord attached. Tests later proved that she was not the mother.
Curry-Demus then told police she miscarried in June and didn't want to upset her own mother by telling her she had lost the baby.
She said she befriended a pregnant woman and discussed buying her child when it was born, according to the criminal complaint.
Curry-Demus told police she paid a woman named Tina $US1,000 ($A1,030) for the baby.
Curry-Demus was charged with child endangerment and dealing in infant children. She has been jailed in lieu of $US10,000 ($A10,300) bond and a psychiatric exam.
Morton said further charges in the case would be filed after the body is identified.
