Mother and Three Children Killed in Foetus Theft Case

A 24-year-old woman was in jail in Belleville, Illinois, yesterday charged with murder as authorities tried to unravel a grisly trail that left a pregnant woman and her three children dead.

Tiffany Hall was arrested after police found the body of 23-year-old Jinella Tunstall on Thursday on an empty plot of land in East St Louis. An autopsy revealed that her abdomen had been cut open by a sharp object, believed to be scissors, and her seven-month-old foetus removed.

A frantic search for Tunstall's three children, aged seven, two and one, ended on Saturday when, acting on information from Hall, police returned to the dead woman's apartment.

Inside, they found the children's decomposing and partially clothed bodies in the washing machine and dryer.

Authorities investigating the case declined to say whether Hall was a suspect in the murders of the three children. She "'fessed up where the kids were. She didn't say she killed them," said Ace Hart, a deputy St Clair County coroner.

Police had earlier visited the apartment where the children were found to collect photographs to distribute to the media during the search.

Hall was arrested after she had called police to a park on September 15 saying she had given birth to a stillborn baby. But she refused to allow doctors to examine her and gave conflicting accounts of how she came to have the foetus.

At the baby's funeral on Thursday Hall told her boyfriend that the baby was not his and that she had killed its mother to get it. He reported her to the police, who arrested Hall that day. Tunstall's body was discovered the same day.

A search for Tunstall's three children was set in motion, given extra urgency by the revelation that the last time they had been seen was with Hall, four days earlier.

According to relatives, the two women grew up together, attending the same school since kindergarten, and called each other "cousin". Hall had been a babysitter for Tunstall's children.

At the end of the two-day search for the three children, which saw police comb nearby parks and lakes, emotions ran high in the St Louis community.

"Our hearts go out to the family and friends," said police captain Craig Koehler. "Any time you have three deceased children, it's a very emotional time. All these investigators have worked tirelessly with one outcome in mind - to find these children alive."

Family members gathered at the John DeShields apartment complex on Saturday night as the children's bodies were removed.

"I'm just glad we can move forward," LaDonna Tunstall, stepmother of the murdered woman, told the Chicago Tribune. "I hate the fact the kids are dead. At least they're at peace and with their mum."

Neighbours said Hall was a quiet woman who kept to herself. She lost custody in 1999 of her two young daughters after allegations that she had abused them, but regained custody in 2002.