Coy sentenced to life in prison

Abcnews.go.com

March 1, 2012

A Kentucky woman was sentenced to life in prison without parole Thursday for slaying a pregnant acquaintance and cutting her baby boy alive from her womb.

Kathy Coy of Morgantown agreed to the sentence in a deal last month in which she avoided a possible death penalty by pleading guilty but mentally ill to killing 21-year-old Jamie Stice last year and taking the baby.

Coy showed no reaction in the courtroom.

"There is no justice in this case," Stice's brother, Eric Stice, said after the sentencing.

The boy, named Isaiah, survived and lives with his father.

Prosecutors said Coy had befriended Stice on Facebook and used a stun gun to subdue the pregnant woman last April after luring her out of the house by saying they were going baby-supply shopping.

Police said after Coy stunned the expectant mother, she slit her wrists, cut the baby from her body and brought the baby, a uterus, ovaries and a placenta to a local hospital. The umbilical cord was still attached, police said.

Coy initially told police she gave birth to the boy, then said she bought him for $550.

Police searched Coy's home and computer, finding links to two pregnant women on her Facebook page. Investigators found one of the women unharmed, but couldn't find Stice.

Coy eventually led detectives to a wooded area off a dirt road, where Stice's remains were found.

Police found the stun gun and two knives believed to have been used in the attack.

Family wants death penalty for accused

Bgdailynews.com

January 20, 2012

The family of a Bowling Green woman who was killed by someone who used a drywall knife to carve the woman's unborn baby from her womb wants to see the accused receive the death penalty.

Kathy Coy, 34, of Morgantown is charged with murder and two counts of kidnapping in the death of Jamie Stice, 21, who was found April 14 with her throat cut and her wrists bound and slit in a wooded area off U.S. 68-Ky. 80 near Oakland. Her unborn baby boy, who was cut from his mother's womb, survived. Coy is also charged with resisting arrest and tampering with physical evidence. She has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

During a pretrial conference today, Warren Circuit Court Judge John Grise set a Jan. 15, 2013, trial date for the case. The trial is expected to last four weeks.

Warren County Commonwealth's Attorney Chris Cohron anticipates reaching a decision on whether to seek the death penalty before Coy's next pretrial conference, set for 8:30 a.m. Feb. 20.

"I want the death penalty," Stice's mother, Jeannie Stice of Bowling Green, said after today's hearing. "Jamie's whole family wants the death penalty. I want the death penalty because I want her to see the judge tell her, ‘You are going to sit on death row for the rest of your life in jail,' and I want Isaiah, Jamie's baby, to know that her family fought all the way for her."

The baby boy that Jamie never got to hold, Isaiah Allen Stice Reynolds, is now a smiling and happy 9-month-old, Stice said.

"He's starting to crawl," she said. "He'll be walking before you know it.

"I keep telling him over and over and over how much she loved him and what she would be doing if she was here."

Cohron, who in November expected to reach a decision on the death penalty before today's hearing, now plans to make that decision within the next month, he said.

"What we anticipate is prior to the Feb. 20 date, we will file a pleading when the final decision is made to seek aggravated sentencing," Cohron said.

In this case, aggravated sentencing could include the death penalty, life without parole and life without parole for 25 years.

"We always take the victims' wishes into account in any capital case, but the final decision rests with my office," Cohron said about the family's desire to seek the death penalty in the case.

But other factors also play a role in such a decision.

"In any case, you look at the nature of the crime, the defendant's criminal record, you look at all the facts surrounding the event, and it's one of those things that any time we have sought aggravated sentencing in a case, it's always been a clear decision," Cohron said.

Coy, a twice-divorced mother of two teenagers, befriended Jamie Stice and another pregnant woman on Facebook, according to court testimony in May. Coy told detectives that she had suffered a miscarriage in the weeks leading up to Jamie Stice's death.

Coy is accused of using a stun gun on Jamie Stice and driving her to a wooded area, where she used a drywall knife to carve Jamie Stice's baby from the mother's body, removing Jamie Stice's ovaries, most of her uterus and the placenta. Jamie Stice died in the woods.

Coy also is accused of taking the baby and trying to pass him off as her own.

Coy is in Warren County Regional Jail without bond.

Jamie Stice's son lives with his father, who spends every other weekend with Jamie Stice's family.

Fetal abductions 'eerily similar'

Bgdailynews.com

May 1, 2011

Facebook brought together two young women - one pregnant with her first child, a son, the other already a mother and pretending to be pregnant with her third child.

If Jamie Stice of Bowling Green hadn’t been expecting, she might have never crossed paths with Kathy Coy, a twice-divorced mother of two teens living in Morgantown and trying to make another go of a relationship with her latest ex-husband, Shannon Coy.

But the social networking site made it easy for Coy to befriend Stice, who proudly displayed her baby bump as her Facebook profile picture. Coy was also Facebook friends with another pregnant woman in the same stage of pregnancy as Stice.

Coy and Stice had known each other for only a couple of weeks before the relationship came to a tragic end. Kathy Coy, 33, is charged with kidnapping a minor and with murder in Stice’s death. Stice was 21.

Kentucky State Police found Stice’s body April 14 in a wooded area off U.S. 68-Ky. 80 near Oakland. Stice’s throat had been cut and her wrists bound and slit. Stice had been disemboweled, and her baby boy had been cut from her body with a drywall knife. The infant still had the umbilical cord, a uterus and two ovaries attached to him when Coy showed up at a friend’s Butler County house claiming to have just given birth, according to police court testimony and court records.

The way Stice died and the way her baby boy was brought into the world are shocking, but her murder and the subsequent fetal kidnapping is not the first crime of its kind. It was the 14th fetal abduction in the United States since July 1987.

Of the 14 fetal abductions, 10 babies survived the ordeal, including Stice’s son, Isaiah Allen Stice Reynolds, who was listed late last week in good condition at The Medical Center at Bowling Green.

“They are all eerily similar,” said Cathy Nahirny, senior analyst, infant abductions, for the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, in reference to the case against Coy and the 13 other fetal abductions.

Infant kidnappers are usually women of child-bearing age in a fragile relationship with a male partner. Typically the woman abductor will tell her male partner that she is pregnant with his child, Nahirny said.

“What happens is this bonds him to her, and so he stays,” she said. “Now she has to perpetuate a ruse of being pregnant.”

Infant abductors might gain weight, wear maternity clothes and tell everyone around them they are pregnant. They are usually manipulative and carefully plan an abduction.

“They’ll use different means to obtain their target, which is the victim mom,” Nahirny said. “How they go about it, it’s not as if there’s a handbook out there. They all put their personal twist on things. They are all good at the con. That is how they get through their lives, through lying, manipulation and deceit.

“It’s very disturbing.”

Infant abductors also like to show off “their” new baby, Nahirny said. The women have been telling people for months that they are pregnant when in some cases they never were.

Coy wasn’t wearing pants when she arrived in Shelly Lindsey’s driveway April 13, according to police court testimony. She was sitting on the placenta and other female organs inside her car while holding the baby in her arms.

Coy was honking the horn. Lindsey came out and called for an ambulance when Coy announced she had just given birth. Coy got out of the car holding the baby boy. His mother’s reproductive organs were still attached.

Coy asked her friend to snap a picture of the baby and send it to her “husband” Shannon Coy, who was working out of town. He received the text message with the picture, according to court testimony and records.

Fetal abductors follow nearly the same pattern as the typical infant abductor, Nahirny said, with one major difference: These crimes are taken to the next level in terms of brutality.

When fetal abductors are caught, their legal defense teams usually try to prove that their clients are mentally unstable.

“But when you look at it from a clinical eye, there is usually so much planning that goes into these incidents,” Nahirny said.

Coy told detectives that she had suffered a miscarriage a few months ago but withheld that information from her family while pretending to still be pregnant, according to court testimony.

In recent weeks, Coy disclosed the miscarriage to her daughter and asked for the 13-year-old girl’s help in kidnapping a baby. Coy also asked her 14-year-old son if he would help her commit a murder, according to court testimony. Both children refused.

Coy stands accused of luring Stice into her car on the premise that the two women were going to obtain baby items. She is also accused of using a stun gun on Stice. Coy bought the stun gun at a local flea market on April 3. Her daughter was with her when she made the purchase.

Nahirny surmises that the women who commit fetal abductions see the expectant mom not as a person, but as a vessel that contains something inside that they want for themselves.

“It’s that calculated, and it’s that cold,” said Ann W. Burgess, a doctor of nursing science at Boston College who teaches courses in victimology, forensic science and forensic mental health. “Any person who commits a crime has to justify it in their mind, and that would be one way to do it.”

Burgess and Nahirny plan to study the issue of fetal abductions.

Because hospitals have intensified infant safety measures and taken steps to prevent infant abductions, some women are going to the extreme by taking babies directly from the womb, Nahirny said.

In some of the early cases of fetal abductions, the kidnapper would pick a vulnerable woman in need of help, meeting the expectant mother in a public place such as outside of a doctor’s office or in a shopping center. Some kidnappers study how to extract a baby.

“You’ve seen over time some changes in the style of attack and some access of the mother victim,” Burgess said.

“This last case, I found it quite horrendous,” Burgess said about Stice’s murder and the way her baby boy was removed from his mother’s body.

“Every (kidnapping) is horrible,” Nahirny said. “But these are particularly gruesome. There is a general perception in our society that women are not capable of committing violent crime when in fact, women do commit violent crimes.”

Coy remains lodged in the Warren County Regional Jail, where she is being held without bond. If convicted, she could face the death penalty.

Kathy Michelle Coy - Leads pregnant woman into woods, immobilizes her with stun gun, carves baby out of womb

The Weekly Vice

April 19, 2011

Bowling Green, KY - Kathy Michelle Coy, a 33-year-old Kentucky woman has been charged with murder after she allegedly used a stun gun to subdue a young pregnant woman before cutting the woman's baby out of her womb.

According to Kentucky State Police, Coy had recently suffered a miscarriage when she hatched a plan to carve a child out of another pregnant woman's womb and call it her own.

Last Wednesday, Coy executed her plan - murdering 21-year-old Jamie Stice in a horrific manner that forced her family to vacate the courtroom in tears during Coy's preliminary hearing.

According to police, the tragedy began when Coy led the expectant mother into a wooded area near a Kentucky freeway. That's when Coy pulled out a stun gun and used it to immobilize her victim.

Coy then slit the woman's throat and wrists before using the knife to cut the woman's baby out of her womb.

Shortly after committing the crime, Coy drove to a friend's house stating "I just had the baby, it's here," according to Det. Chad Winn who testified at Coy's hearing. "She advised that Ms. Coy had no pants on and she was sitting on the placenta and female organs and holding the baby in her hands."

Coy was then transported by ambulance to The Medical Center in Bowling Green where she presented the baby along with Stice's uterus, ovaries, placenta and umbilical cord - which was still attached to the infant. Recognizing that something was seriously wrong, hospital staff contacted police.

When police explained to Coy that she had arrived at the hospital with most of another woman's reproductive organs - Coy changed her story and claimed that she paid a stranger $550 for the baby boy. Police didn't buy her story and held her on suspicion of murder.

Investigators obtained a search warrant for Coy's home and quickly found a connection between Coy and Stice through Facebook. Coy reportedly found Stice on the social networking site and introduced herself by stating "How are you? I hear you are going to be a mom."

Coy then reportedly convinced Stice that she worked for a company that could help the young mother with baby clothing and financial assistance. She continued to build Stice's trust by promising to help her find suitable living arrangements and other provisions the baby would need.

With mounting evidence against her, Coy eventually admitted to murdering Stice, providing investigators with the location of Stice's remains.

Coy's defense attorney didn't ask any questions during the hearing and declined to have Coy testify citing her "mental health problems." It's a likely bet that the defense's strategy will be one of having Coy declared mentally incompetent to stand trial.

The case will now go to the grand jury. The child's father, Matt Jones, has stated that the infant is in good condition. A memorial shower for Jamie was held on the date originally reserved for her baby shower.

Friend: Killing Pregnant Kentucky Woman, Stealing Baby Was Plotted

Aolnews.com

April 15, 2011

Kathy Michelle Coy, the Kentucky woman accused of murdering 21-year-old Jamie Stice and kidnapping her unborn son, may have spent more than six months plotting the alleged crime, according to a friend of the victim.

"Jamie fell in her trap," Stice's close friend Ashley Nicole told AOL News. "She [allegedly] kidnapped her, killed her and then cut her baby out of her. I'm still in shock. It is unimaginable."

According to Nicole, Coy, 33, friended Stice on Facebook and told her that she was from an agency that helps pregnant women and could help get her clothes for her baby. She also told Stice that she, too, was pregnant, Nicole said.

"She made Jamie believe she was pregnant when she wasn't," Nicole said. "She had stolen someone else's ultrasound pictures back in October, and if you count that up, that's seven months. I really believe she had this planned out from the beginning and needed the right person to do this stuff to."

Authorities jailed Coy on murder and kidnapping charges Wednesday after personnel from a Bowling Green hospital contacted Kentucky State Police about a "suspicious birth" involving Coy. After questioning Coy, authorities went to a wooded area in Oakland, Ky., where they found Stice's body, Kentucky State Trooper Jonathan Biven said at a press conference today.

According to Nicole, the baby, who was not due until May 24, is doing well. "The baby is OK. He is premature [and] he is still in the hospital," she said.

Warren County Coroner Kevin Kirby said preliminary autopsy results indicate Stice suffered from "multiple homicidal sharp-force injuries." He declined to elaborate.

"We've still got some other tests that we are doing, toxicology and things like that, and we're still waiting on the results of those," Kirby told AOL News.

The scenario Nicole alleges is eerily similar to one that occurred in Missouri in 2007, in which then 19-year-old Lauren M. Gash befriended 18-year-old Amanda Howard on the social networking website MySpace. Gash, who had been lying about her own pregnancy to family members for months, told Howard she had some baby clothes for her and set up a meeting at a gas station.

On July 30, 2007, Gash picked Howard up at the gas station, but instead of taking her to her home to pick up baby clothes, she drove her to a hotel room in Blue Springs, Mo., where she bound and gagged her. Gash then got on top of Howard and attempted to snap her neck.

The hotel staff alerted law enforcement, and when police came to the hotel room and rescued Howard, they found several items of interest, including duct tape, a drop cloth, a syringe and forged copies of a birth certificate.

In July 2008, Gash pleaded guilty to kidnapping, assaulting and restraining Howard. She was sentenced to 23 years in prison.

As for Coy, she is expected to be formally arraigned Tuesday. It was not immediately clear whether she would be represented by an attorney.

Meanwhile, Stice's friends plan on holding a memorial baby shower for her son Saturday. Nicole said the goal is to gather items for the child and also to raise money for a funeral fund.

"She was really excited to become a mom. She was really looking forward to it and really wanted to meet him," Nicole said. "But now he is not able to have a mother, and all we can do is show him pictures.

New Details In Murder Of Southern Kentucky Mother-To-Be

Lex18.com

April 14, 2011

Her family says 21 year old Jamie Stice was expecting a baby boy in just 40 days. Yesterday, staff at Bowling Green Medical Center reported a suspicious birth. That led to the sad discovery of Stice's body in a field outside Bowling Green, and to a murder and kidnapping charge for another southern Kentucky woman.

"She was a wonderful girl with a very sweet spirit about her," said Stice's aunt, Nancy Logsdon. She had planned a baby shower for this coming Saturday.

"The baby was named Isaiah and she was actually due, I think she put on Facebook she was due in about 40 days," she said.

Then came a tip of a suspicious birth from staff at the Bowling Green Medical Center. It led Kentucky State Police to a wooded area just outside Bowling green. Next came the arrest of 33 year old Kathy Michelle Coy, now charged with murder and kidnapping of a minor. Stice's friend Ashley Reeder says the two women were friends. She says Kathy had stolen someone else's sonogram picture, claiming she was pregnant.

"She was desperate to prove to everybody that she was pregnant, and I guess nobody believed her because she was telling everybody, oh I'm pregnant, I'm pregnant, I'm pregnant. So I think she did this to show everybody that she was gonna have the baby when it really wasn't her baby," Reeder said.

The atrocity has prompted an outpouring of grief from Stice's friends and family on Facebook. Reeder started a page in her memory.

"I shouldn't be making memorial pages for people who are so young," Reeder said. "She was very outgoing, very loving, always smiling."

It's a virtual place that Reeder hopes will serve as a reminder for a little boy who never got to know his mom.

"I thought Jamie really needs to be recognized because she left a son behind and he needs to know how his mom was," she said.

Police would not comment on the condition of the infant in this case. Kathy Michelle Coy is currently being held without bond in the Warren County Detention Center. If convicted of the crimes she's accused of, she could face the death penalty.

A fund has been set up to help pay for Stice's funeral. If you'd like to help, you can deposit a check made out to the Jamie Stice Fund at the Service One Credit Union in Bowling Green.