A Schaumburg couple and a relative were charged Sunday in the slayings of two Addison children and their pregnant mother, allegedly cutting her unborn baby from her womb so they could have it for themselves, investigative sources say.
Fedell Caffey and Jacqueline Annette Williams allegedly wanted a baby so badly that they used a knife or scissors to remove the nine-month-old fetus four days before it was due to be born, the sources said.
After the slayings late Thursday or early Friday, they allegedly cleaned up the baby boy, crudely cut the umbilical cord and dressed him in baby clothes, law enforcement sources told the Tribune. The child, named Elijah after he was recovered safely, remained in stable condition at an unnamed local hospital Sunday and was considered in remarkably good shape given the manner of his birth.
On Sunday, police charged Caffey, 22, Williams, 28, and Laverne Ward, 24, believed to be Williams’ cousin, in the slayings of Deborah Evans and two of her children, Samantha and Joshua, said Joe Birkett, chief of criminal prosecution for the DuPage County state’s attorney’s office.
The three suspects also were charged with aggravated kidnapping in the abduction of the newborn baby and in the abduction of Joshua before he was killed.
“If you gave a fiction writer who did horror a blank piece of paper, they couldn’t come up with something like this,” Birkett said.
Police refused to discuss the motive for the murders at a press conference Sunday. However, sources told the Tribune that Caffey wanted a child but, for reasons that remain unclear, he was unable to do so with Williams.
Williams reportedly pretended she was pregnant and, two weeks ago, allegedly told a neighbor that she was 8 1/2 months along. Her phantom pregnancy coincided with the real pregnancy of Evans, 28, who was expecting her fourth child.
Williams apparently knew Evans through Ward, who is Evans’ ex-boyfriend. Ward fathered a child with Evans, a 17-month-old boy named Jordan, and may be the father of Elijah, though paternity tests are pending.
The exact time of the crimes and many details remained unclear Sunday, but police provided this account:
The slayings occurred in Evans’ first-floor apartment on Swift Road on the western edge of Addison between 7:30 p.m. Thursday and about 3 a.m. Friday. The apartment showed no signs of forced entry, though police would not say whether the assailants used a key to get in or were let in by Evans.
The assailants apparently cut the baby from Evans’ womb; she also was stabbed and shot in the head with a small-caliber handgun, investigative sources said. Samantha, 10, was stabbed to death in a rear bedroom.
Joshua, 8, was abducted, stabbed to death at an unknown location, then dumped in a Maywood alley Friday afternoon, police said.
“He was right in back, near my garage. You couldn’t have missed him,” said Janice Pullins, a nurse who lives nearby. She believes the body was dumped Friday afternoon because it wasn’t there at 2:30 p.m., and police discovered the body about 3:15 p.m.
“There was no blood out there, so he must have been killed somewhere else,” she said. “It’s really sick. Who would think I’d come home and find a baby in my back yard?”
The fact that Jordan was at home but untouched during the crime made Ward an early suspect, authorities said. He was questioned by police starting midday Friday.
Ward, of Wheaton, was released from prison in January, sources said, though the reason for his incarceration was not available.
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He lived with a friend, Laura Hughes, and her three children. One of her children said Ward was the father of Evans’ new baby.
Outside the Addison police station Sunday, Hughes insisted that Ward was innocent and that she could account for his whereabouts late Thursday and early Friday.
“Vern did not do this,” Hughes said. “I told police where he was.”
Williams and Caffey, both described by authorities as unemployed, have lived in an area of neat townhouses in Schaumburg for less than a year. Neighbors described Williams as polite and pleasant. They called Caffey a troublemaker.
“He was a violent person,” Pat O’Connor, 38, said. “She always wanted the cops here. She would be yelling and yelling.”
Williams has three other children, a 12-year-old boy, 11-year-old girl and 9-year-old boy, who were taken into custody by the Department of Children and Family Services after her arrest, authorities said.
Williams was arrested at her Schaumburg apartment Friday evening and had Elijah with her at the time. It was not clear when Caffey was arrested.
Jordan, who apparently witnessed the killing of his mother and sister, was being cared for by relatives.
At Evans’ apartment Sunday, friends and neighbors had left about 40 stuffed animals by her door in a makeshift memorial.
At the Keeneyville Bible Church in Roselle, where Evans had been a member since childhood, congregants said a prayer for her family Sunday.
Rev. John Sale called Evans “a truly warm, genuine person.”
“She had a kind of kindness and sweet spirit about her, and she really loved those kids,” Sale said. “She took good care of them, and everyone always said how well-behaved the children were.”
Laura Soen, 15, knew Samantha through the Awana Club, a church youth group. “She was a sweet girl, full of life,” she said. “It breaks my heart that something like this could happen.”
Evans’ cousin, Fred Moody, said that Evans had taken out an order of protection against Ward earlier in the year, although authorities could not confirm this.
The baby, who weighs 6 pounds 8 ounces, was described as normal by hospital officials.
Evans had known that the baby was going to be a boy and planned to name it Elijah, after the biblical prophet.
“We are ecstatic that he survived,” Moody said. “The baby will be well taken care of and loved, as will Jordan.”
Medical experts said Elijah was lucky to have survived with so few injuries, but said a Caesarean section usually is not among the most difficult medical procedures to perform. .
“It’s really not that technical,” said Dr. Nancy Carlson, an obstetrician at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood. “It’s pretty obvious on a woman in her ninth month where the baby is. You just go for that spot.”
The baby would need to be removed from the dead mother within 3 to 5 minutes to avoid neurological damage, Carlson said.
Dr. Lanetta Anderson, an Evanston Hospital obstetrician, said a healthy, full-term infant could survive such a crude birth as long as it were cleaned off and left in a warm place.
“We see babies thrown in garbage cans in temperatures of 20 degrees and they survive,” she said.