We had heard through a source that a pregnant woman had been shot. We didn't know the extent of her injuries. I went with my photographer to the woman's neighborhood, an apartment complex in north St. Louis County. The story we uncovered was more horrific than we had originally anticipated. The woman's live-in boyfriend is charged with taking a sawed-off shotgun, placing it against the woman's stomach and pulling the trigger. The unborn child, a girl, was killed and the woman is in the hospital in critical condition. St. Louis County Police say the two had been arguing over who was the father of the child.
As I was working on the story my wife, Lisa Manzo, called me. Lisa is the former health team reporter at KMOV and when I told her about the story I was working on she told me that the number one case of death among pregnant women is homicide. I then contacted Barnes-Jewish hospital and they hooked me up with a woman who has worked with abuse victims for several years. She told me The Centers for Disease Control has conducted a study on the matter but there's no good explanation as to why a pregnancy triggers abuse or escalates an already abusive situation.
The boyfriend in this case---32-year-old Andre Stewart--is now charged with Assault, Armed Criminal Action and First Degree Murder because the unborn child was killed.

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