MILWAUKEE (AP) - A Milwaukee woman accused of killing a young mother by cutting her full-term fetus from her womb is set to stand trial nearly a year after the attack.
Annette Morales-Rodriguez is scheduled for trial Monday on two counts of first-degree intentional homicide in the October 2011 deaths of Maritza Ramirez-Cruz and her fetus, a boy. She has pleaded not guilty.
Prosecutors say Morales-Rodriguez had miscarriages and was desperate to give her boyfriend a son. They say she faked being pregnant, panicked as her supposed due date approached and settled on a plan to attack an expectant mother and raise the yet-unborn child as her own.
Ramirez-Cruz left behind a husband, two young daughters and a young son. She was 23 when she died.