Mum killed, baby ripped from womb

A YOUNG woman who was desperate to have a child slit the throat of a nine months’ pregnant woman, carved the live baby out of her belly and then maniacally proclaimed that she had just given birth.

“It’s my baby!” Ashley Wade allegedly insisted to cops arriving at the blood-soaked scene, with the placenta and umbilical cord from the gutted woman lying on the floor.

The New York Post reports that police officers were called to Wade’s home in the Wakefield section at around 2:20pm (6:20am AEDT) by her boyfriend, who had walked in on the aftermath of the grisly slaying.

He was standing outside the home cradling the healthy newborn when the officers showed up, and he rushed them to the crime scene.

It was not clear whether the 22-year-old Wade had known the mother-to-be, Angelikque Sutton, also 22, before Friday, or why Sutton was paying a visit to Wade’s home.

Wade — who had been telling people in the neighbourhood that she was pregnant — allegedly gashed Sutton across the neck just inside the home’s faux-stone entrance, sources said.

She then allegedly performed a crude Cesarean section on Sutton, ripping the infant girl from her womb.

“The placenta was on the floor, and the perp had cut the cord herself,” a source said.

It was not yet clear whether the real mother was still alive as the baby was being ripped from her womb.

The child was rushed to Montefiore Hospital and is only a week premature.

Wade was taken into custody at the scene and was being held for observation at Jacobi Medical Centre.

Charges against her were pending.

Authorities were seeking a search warrant to test whether Wade actually is pregnant, sources said.

“It looks like the baby was surgically removed,” Bronx Councilman Andy King said outside Wade’s house.

“This is unforeseeable. With the holidays approaching, what a bloody way to start the season,” he added.

Sutton and the baby’s father, Patrick Bradley, had registered for baby gifts on the baby-gift registry site The Bump.

“Due Date: Dec. 2, 2015,” read the registry listing, on which the couple sought a pink folding hamper, pink flannel receiving blankets and pink, bird-bedecked crib bedding.

“They are matching the blood of the baby to the deceased,” King said at the crime scene later Friday.