Woman Murders New Mum To Claim Newborn Baby

A twisted 36-year-old Indiana woman has been reportedly arrested for kidnapping and killing a young mum in order to steal her newborn baby girl and claim as her own.

MailOnline reports;

The suspect, who has not been identified, lives in Gary, Indiana, where the body of the victim, Samantha Fleming, was found last Friday wrapped up in plastic and doused with bleach.

Police believe the woman went to the home of 23-year-old Fleming in Anderson, 180 miles away, posing as a Child Protective Services employee and convinced Fleming to come with her to Gary.

Fleming recently gave birth to a daughter, Serenity, and lives with her boyfriend, but disappeared with her baby on April 5.

Incredibly, the baby has been found by police and is safe, CBS reported.

The suspect is said to have known a lot of personal information about Fleming and successfully posed as a case worker, leading Fleming to believe she had to attend a court hearing.

Fleming was reported missing by her boyfriend.

Police were led to Gary after Fleming’s cell phone signal was picked up in the city, where the young mother’s wallet was also found near an apartment block.

Police followed other leads to the suspect’s home, but the woman wasn’t there. Investigators said they smelt a foul odor coming from the small one-story house. Inside they found the body of a young woman that had been stabbed, covered in bleach, wrapped in plastic and stuffed in a plastic tub.

As officers searched the home, the suspect’s sister came by. She had a baby with her and was had come by to pick up some things. Police quickly realized the baby was Serenity.

The sister told police the suspect had asked her to care for the baby and had gone to visit their mother in Texas. The suspect is now said to be in police custody at a Texas hospital, where is she is under mental health care.

The infant was handed over to police by the sister, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Police have not released the name of the suspect and no charges have been filed. The suspect’s house had reportedly been fitted out with a nursery.

‘It appears that she had been planning this. There was everything you would buy for a new baby. A crib, changing table, diaper bag, carrier, new clothes,’ Lt. Thomas Pawlak told the newspaper.

A neighbor told the paper the suspect said she was pregnant with twins.

The neighbor said around Easter the suspect said one of the twins had died but that she had given birth, only the child was still in hospital with jaundice.

When the neighbor eventually saw the woman with the child, she said she found the baby to be ‘lighter-skinned’ than she expected. The woman also had a bandage on her hand.

The alleged kidnapper asked her neighbor to watch her house because she was going out of town.

Just days before the woman left, the neighbor said she saw her going back and forth from her house to her garage and carrying small plastic grocery bags.

The neighbor said they had been texting regularly since the woman left but when she texted the alleged kidnapper after she saw police enter her home on Friday, the messages stopped.

Pawlak believes the alleged kidnapper was very familiar with Fleming, and they are trying to work out how.