Baby Cut From Mother In Critical Condition

Boy Was Almost Full-Term When Taken Out Of Mother's Body As She Was Stabbed To Death

(AP)  A nearly full-term baby boy cut from the body of its mother remained in critical condition Tuesday in a Spokane hospital.

Officials at Deaconess Medical Center, citing privacy laws, refused to release additional information.

Police in Kennewick provided no new details on the horrific killing of the child's mother last weekend. A woman has been jailed for the attack and the investigation is continuing, police spokesman Mike Blatman said.

Police cannot say if the two women knew each other and were trying to determine the motive for the attack, Blatman said.

Araceli Camacho Gomez, 27, of Pasco, was found dead of multiple stab wounds in a Kennewick park. She had been attacked late Friday night, her hands and feet were bound with yarn and an autopsy showed she died of chest wounds.

"The autopsy indicated additional cuts in the area of the uterus consistent with the cutting of the body to remove the child," Blatman said.

Phiengchai Sisouvanh Synhavong, 23, of Kennewick, remained in the Benton County jail without bail after being arrested for investigation of aggravated first-degree murder. She tried to pass the infant boy off as her own in calls made late Friday night to emergency dispatchers, police said.

Arraignment is scheduled Wednesday in Kennewick. If Synhavong is charged with aggravated murder, Prosecutor Andrew K. Miller will then have 30 days to decide whether to seek the death penalty.

There is no telephone listing for the name Synhavong in the Tri-Cities area, which includes Kennewick, Pasco and Richland, but family members told KEPR Television she had been telling them she was pregnant and acting strangely in recent days. They said she worked with senior citizens and knew Camacho Gomez from work.

Friends of the dead woman's family told the Tri-City Herald that a woman, believed to be Synhavong, met Camacho Gomez on a bus Friday and offered to give her some baby clothes.

Synhavong, a 2004 graduate of Southridge High School, was married in May to Keun Synhavong, 35.

Five of her relatives attended a court hearing Monday in which Phiengchai spoke only to pronounce her name and to confirm that she understood her rights. A lawyer, Christopher A. Swaby, was appointed to represent her.

According to documents filed in court, blue mechanic's gloves soaked in blood, a boxcutter, bloody paper towels, yarn, a mucus bulb, baby bottle and baby socks were found in her purse. The court filings did not indicate whether the boxcutter was used to cut or stab Gomez.

Court documents allege that Synhavong called 911 at 11:04 p.m. Friday saying she was at a store, had just given birth and that she thought the baby had died.

The call ended, but the woman called again a few minutes later. Dispatchers traced the calls, and she was found in a parking lot with the baby, holding what appeared to be an umbilical cord. A "significant amount of blood and pieces of human tissue" were found in the back seat of a vehicle, documents said.

The site was a mile or two from the spot where Gomez's body was later found in Columbia Park.

Synhavong and the baby were taken to Kennewick General Hospital, where medical tests showed she had not recently given birth.

Camacho Gomez was found dead around 1 a.m. Saturday.

[erasmus81]

There are a lot of sick people in this world, and the numbers are going to keep going up, not down. There is no way of stopping it.

[erasmus81]

"Did ye have a number change from 6 to 18." Posted by BarbaraM99 at 08:55 PM : Jul 02, 2008

Yes, I got kicked off for being naughty.:)

[toldyouso12]

Nobody will probably say this--but both the victim and the nut appear to be immigrants. Legal? Illegal? What kind of people exactly are we allowing to infiltrate and affect our country? Does it occur to anyone that these people (like the mass murderer Cho )may have had severe trauma in their home countries and that this wholesale embrace of people without thorough background checks will be the death of us.

Has anyone noticed the times that it has been reported that in responding to crimes in certain neighborhoods, police are met with massive rock and bottle throwing campaigns? Who is doing it? Mostly hispanics who resent the police coming in to arrest or look for someone. They probably also do it in the "old country" For all the bleeding heart idealists--do you really want those kind of issues here? Cutting babies out of other people, rock throwing, etc--not that we don''t have our own share of homegrown monsters--but why allow others to stay or import them without a thorough vetting?

[minnick8-2009]

I hope the perpetrator of this crime, the woman desperate to have possession of a baby is punished by having her bowels ripped open and left to bleed to death.

[minnick8-2009]

To Keithie and Only the Real

There are two genders: None of us would be here without the other. Every man who can''t stand women was born of a woman. Every woman who can''t stand men had some kind of a father, even if he was only a sperm donor.

[keithle1]

What is up with these crazy women that do this kind of thing? The only way they can feel important is to be pregnant. Adopt a baby for crying out loud. We have no shortage of unwanted babies.

Weird. Sometimes I wonder about women. Lots of them are emotional basket cases. Fragile. Overly sensitive. Needy. Cry at the drop of a hat about anything & everything. Desperate for unconditonal love & attention.

Glad I was born a man.

[barbaram99]

erasmus18.. I am happier really. I wanted this and so I did so for family .Did ye have a number change from 6 to 18. It has /is a battle getting things changed over. Dad saids keep it meaning my name. Yer the first to notice.
That woman will sit in the prisom. crzmeat used to say it well. Hang in the village centre or long them lines. She will get life here. Not right but she will.

[erasmus81]

Posted by BarbaraM99 at 01:23 PM : Jul 02, 2008

Glad to see you are using your real name now!

[avspeaks]

There is too much evil in the world. We have become numb to the majority of evil that exists today. May this evil person face her judgment here and here after.

[deacon20081]

Bring back public hanging

[barbaram99]

Sick is too kinder word. SHE IS A COLD BLOODED KILLER. There now the golden rule..

[annia1233]

this is a sick puppy. SICK, SICK, SICK. It is incredible how mentally unstable a person can get and please do not think that the motherly feeling will take a woman to do such thing. this is the work of a very ill mind that took it with this type of subject (the mother-child psychosis) she could have as well thought the child was a devil and kill it too. One never know mentally unstable and very ill people will do next without proper care. Remember the mother that drowned her 5 children. They live in their own fantasy, their own ignorance made them believe anything will be credible. Now, women should know that pregnancy and delivery CAN NOT BE FAKE! there are physical and chemical signs in the body and blood that can not be put there if they are not. The belly, the genitals, the hormones, the different processes. Stupidity, mental disease and ignorance can only make a woman fake and think medical community will fall for it.

[missybelle-2009]

I feel sorrow for everyone. How desperate the killer must have felt to go to the lengths she did to have that baby? I''m not absolving or excusing her, I hope she gets hard life, but that is one messed up person!

[jankebenz]

Just how low can humanity sink? What kinds of evil lurks in the minds of those possessed?

[credibility2]

Tragically, there will be those that will try and defend the evil individual(s) that committed this crime and find some way of explaining and rationalizing how the murderer(s) could''ve become so evil as to do something this horrific and unthinkable. There is no excuse for doing this. The person(s) responsible do not deserve any justice; the death penalty would be too merciful. I pray for the murdered mother''s soul and her family. I also pray that the child will survive and grow up in an environment of peace and love, which I''m sure it''s murdered mother would''ve provided.

[nssherlock1]

That is one sick puppy!