Mystery Baby In Hospital; Woman's Body Found

Dead Woman's Body Found In False Mom's Home

POSTED: 6:21 pm EDT July 17, 2008
UPDATED: 11:53 pm EDT July 18, 2008

WILKINSBURG, Pa. -- One day after a Wilkinsburg woman arrived at West Penn Hospital by ambulance with a newborn who still had his umbilical cord attached, police have no idea who the mother is -- and they've found a dead woman in her home.

Video: Baby Mystery Continues; False Mother In Custody
Video: Body Found In Apartment

On Thursday, Wilkinsburg police said Andrea Curry-Demus claimed the infant boy was hers -- but the 38-year-old woman later told them she had not given birth and had bought the infant for $1,000.

Then, on Friday afternoon, police said they found an identified black woman's body-- face down and bound with duct tape -- in Curry-Demus' third-floor apartment on Ella Street. Police have not been able to determine the dead woman's age, but said it appears she died within 24 hours of her discovery. An autopsy is planned for Saturday morning.

Flies could be seen circling around the apartment all day and an odor was noticeable from the sidewalk below, but police said they didn't find the body earlier because Curry-Demus' sister led them to the wrong apartment at first.

Channel 4 Action News asked Chief Ophelia Coleman if the police were misled and she said "I think that to be true, yes sir."

The families of two missing pregnant women waited outside the apartment Friday night in hopes of learning their loved one was not the dead woman inside.

The family of Kia Johnson, 18, said she's been missing since Tuesday. The family of Tina Carter, 32, hasn't heard from her in a few days but knew she was due to give birth soon.

Police said Curry-Demus -- who is charged with endangering the welfare of a child -- only told them that she knows the woman as "Tina," and that the woman brought the baby to her apartment. It is unclear whether "Tina" is Tina Carter.

Curry-Demus had told friends for months that she was expecting a child.

"She had a baby shower," one of Curry-Demus' neighbors told Channel 4 Action News. "Everybody in the community had come to her baby shower, brought her gifts and stuff."

"I went to the baby shower and her wedding," said Ivee Blunt. "I had no idea something like this could happen. I'm totally shocked. And she was so nice and so kind. It's just unbelievable."

According to the criminal complaint, Demus said she recently had a miscarriage, so she agreed to buy the baby.

"She looked around, like, six to seven months," said Curry-Demus' downstairs neighbor, Taylor Hall.

Pieces of "It's A Boy" banners still decorate the outside of the suspect's mother's home, where friends said the shower was held.

"She had a miscarriage in June and didn't want to make her mother upset," Wilkinsburg Police Detective Rich Grande said.

While leaving the Wilkinsburg Police Department, Demus said, "I didn't do nothing." She was arraigned early Friday and is now at the Allegheny County Jail.

Records show that Demus was arrested in 1990 for stabbing a Wilkinsburg mother while allegedly plotting to kidnap the woman's baby. She pleaded guilty in 1991 to aggravated assault and was sentenced to 10 years of probation.

Police said the baby is doing well at the hospital and will remain there until they figure out who and where his mother is.

"After coming to our attention the fact of who this person is, and that she does have a history of doing this sort of thing before, we are concerned about the (baby's) parent," Wilkinsburg Police Chief Cookie Coleman said.

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