Murder Charges Filed in the Deaths of Unborn Babies in Arkansas and Ohio

By Liz Townsend

Gruesome attacks that caused the death of an unborn baby and severe injury to her mother in Arkansas and the deaths of a young mother and her preborn child in Ohio have led to murder charges against the babies' fathers, who allegedly killed their children because their girlfriends refused to get abortions. Both states have unborn victims laws, which prosecutors to file charges if unborn

children are killed or injured without their mothers' consent. Shiwona Pace, a 23-year-old student at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, lost her baby girl after a savage attack that left her with a broken left wrist, black eye, bruised face, and a spleen that had to be removed. Her baby, whom she named Heaven LaShay, was due to be born within days.

Pace saw her daughter only once, after Heaven had died as a result of the severe beating. "She was a perfect baby, almost seven pounds," Pace told the Associated Press. "It was like she was just sleeping."

Police first thought the attack was a robbery gone wrong, according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Three men were waiting in the home of the baby's father, Pace's boyfriend Erik Bullock, 29, when Pace, Bullock, and Pace's five-year-old son Stephen arrived on the night of August 26. One of the men took Stephen to another room, the Democrat-Gazette reported, and the others began slapping and kicking Pace in the stomach, cursing at her and saying, "Your baby is dying tonight," according to a police affidavit.

After the three "burglars" left, Pace asked Bullock to call 911, but he said his phone was not working, the Democrat-Gazette reported. She went next door to call for an ambulance, and was taken to the hospital. Doctors could do nothing to save the life of the baby.

Further police investigation revealed that Bullock had been seen earlier that night with brothers Eric Beulah, Lonnie Beulah, and Derrick Witherspoon, according to the Democrat- Gazette. Witnesses told police they heard the four men taking about "beating someone up and putting a gun in their mouth," and Bullock then gave the men a large sum of money.

Police also discovered that Bullock tried to persuade Pace to abort her baby. "Mr. Bullock told [Pace] several times that he did not want children and was urging her to have an abortion," detective Charles Weaver wrote in an affidavit, the Democrat- Gazette reported.

Bullock, Eric Beulah, Lonnie Beulah, and Witherspoon were arrested September 2 and charged with first-degree battery for the attack on Pace and capital murder for Heaven's death, according to the Democrat-Gazette. Witherspoon told police that Bullock also participated in the beating, and each of the three men hired by Bullock gave taped statements admitting their part in the attack, the Democrat-Gazette reported. They could receive life in prison or the death penalty if convicted.

"We are appalled at the callous and blatant disregard for human life that the four individuals displayed as they carried out this alleged murder for hire," said Rose Mimms, executive director of Arkansas Right to Life. "Had this violent and criminal assault on this mother and child happened just 28 days earlier, the life of this child, Heaven, would not have received any consideration under Arkansas law."

Arkansas's Fetal Protection Act went into effect on July 30, allowing prosecutors to charge those who kill or injure an unborn child against the mother's will for the first time since the state's previous unborn victims law was repealed in 1964, Mimms told NRL News. The law does not cover babies killed by legal abortion or those who are younger than 12 weeks gestational age.

The Ohio case also involves a murder allegedly planned by a boyfriend to prevent the birth of his baby. Prosecutors in Columbus, Ohio, charged 16-year-old Sean Steele with two counts of aggravated murder September 27 in the deaths of Barbara " Bobbie" Watkins, 15, and her 22-week-old unborn baby. Without an unborn victims law, Steele could only be held accountable for the death of one of his victims.

A construction worker found Watkins's strangled, decomposing body in woods near the busy Easton Town Center retail and entertainment complex September 22, according to the Columbus Dispatch. Bobbie Watkins's family had reported her missing August 27 when she didn't return after leaving home the day before with Steele, the Dispatch reported.

Police said that Steele, the baby's father, told her they would go shopping together August 26 for baby clothes, but instead he strangled her and left her body in the woods. "We received numerous calls that Sean was pushing her to get an abortion," Columbus homicide detective Pat Barr told the Dispat ch. Watkins refused, and her family was supporting her decision to give birth to the baby.

Terry Watkins, Bobbie's mother, told reporters that her daughter, who would have been a sophomore in high school this year, was studious and not a troubled girl. "You had to know Bobbie - - she touched lives in positive ways," she said, according to the Dispatch. "She was just a 15-year-old girl."

Steele surrendered to police September 24 and confessed to killing Watkins and the baby, according to the Dispatch. If convicted, Steele could get a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Ohio's unborn victims law went into effect in 1996, protecting unborn children, beginning at conception, from criminal attack that causes injury or death. The law specifically excludes legal abortion from its provisions.

Both Arkansas's and Ohio's laws passed despite the attempts of pro-abortionists to argue that the bills were an attack on the legal 'right' to abortion. "Opposition to unborn victims laws shows that the other side is truly pro-abortion rather than 'pro- choice,'" Mark Lally, president of Ohio Right to Life, told NRL News. "In these cases, a woman's 'freedom to choose' to have a child was violated along with the child's right to life. By refusing to support these laws, they are defending the assailant just because they don't want recognition for the child."