Jul 19, 2008 10:30 pm US/Eastern
Wecht Weighs In On Investigation Of Woman's Death
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ―
So many questions continue to remain unanswered after the body of a young, pregnant woman was found inside of a Wilkinsburg apartment on Friday.
The apartment belonged to another woman, Andrea Curry-Demus, who claimed to police to have purchased an infant for $1,000.
KDKA's Ross Guidotti talked with former Allegheny County Coroner Dr. Cyril Wecht and he offered his insight into the case.
Dr. Wecht says it is clear that someone cut open the woman to get to her unborn baby. The Allegheny County Medical Examiner's Office classified the process as evisceration.
"Evisceration simply means that the viscera, the body's internal organs, protrude. They don't have to be cut out," said Dr. Wecht. "Once you open the abdomen, the pressure within the abdomen is released."
Dr. Wecht says such a procedure does not require as much skill as one may think.
"The uterus is markedly enlarged, easily visible, you make an incision and you take out the baby," said Dr. Wecht. "You have to be somewhat careful not to cut into the baby, but I don't think anybody who did this necessarily had to have surgical skill."
The key would be timing. Dr. Wecht says he believes the woman was dead or dying before she was cut open, meaning her attacker would have to act quickly if the baby is to survive.
"If the mother has no oxygen, then the baby gets no oxygen," he said. "So, the temporal period is quite similar. The baby cannot continue to function four, five, six minutes very much because the baby is just deriving what oxygen is present in the reservoir of blood that is uterine vessels."
Dr. Wecht says more answer can be provided by testing the body.
"There are some tests that can be done, examining the tissues and so on that can give the pathologist a little better understanding of whether or not she was already dead," he added.
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