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View Full Version : dead kids found in washer and dryer, and even more insane shit


DandyFop
09-24-2006, 12:29 PM
This story is just absolutely fucking crazy


EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. - Authorities on Sunday were trying to pinpoint the cause of death for three children an investigator says were found decomposing inside the washer and dryer of their apartment, hours after a woman was accused of killing their pregnant mother and her fetus.

Saturday night's discovery inside apartment 28J at the John DeShields public housing complex came two days after the mother of the children — ages 7, 2 and 1 — was found in a weedy lot, her abdomen torn open and the fetus missing.

Investigators carried out a furious two-day search, including scouring an 1,100-acre state park, for the children they said were last seen Monday with 24-year-old Tiffany Hall, a family friend prosecutors charged Saturday afternoon with killing Jimella Tunstall and her fetus.

Hours later, Hall pointed authorities to Tunstall's apartment that investigators had briefly visited earlier in search of photographs of the children for media outlets to publicize as the search pressed on, said Ace Hart, a deputy St. Clair County coroner.

Hall "fessed up where the kids were. She didn't say she killed them," Hart said Sunday, saying he understood why investigators may have overlooked the children during their previous trip to the apartment. "Who would be looking in the washer and dryer?"

But by Saturday night, Hart said, "you could find them by the smell."

Two of the children were nude, the third wearing only underpants, Hart said. The oldest, 7-year-old DeMond Tunstall, was found in the dryer, the younger two children — 2-year-old Ivan Tunstall-Collins and 1-year-old Jinela Tunstall — in the washer.

Hall remained jailed Sunday in nearby Belleville on $5 million bond, charged with first-degree murder in Tunstall's death and with intentional homicide of an unborn child.

Autopsies on the children were scheduled for Sunday, Hart said.

Illinois State Police Capt. Craig Koehler declined to say late Saturday whether Hall was suspected in the children's deaths. The cause of their deaths had not been determined, he said.

"Any time you have three deceased children, it's a very emotional time," Koehler said, fighting back tears. "All these investigators have worked tirelessly with one outcome in mind — to find these children alive."

An autopsy showed that Jimella Tunstall, 23, whose body was found Thursday, bled to death after sustaining an abdominal wound caused by a sharp object, believed to be scissors, Hart has said. Authorities believe her womb was cut open after she was knocked unconscious.

Relatives say Tunstall grew up with Hall and had let her baby-sit her children.

Officials suspect Tunstall, who was seven months pregnant, was slain on or about Sept. 15, said Robert Haida, St. Clair County's prosecutor. The same day, Hall summoned police to a park, saying she had given birth to a stillborn child, Hart said.

Hall and the baby were taken to a hospital, where she would not let doctors examine her and offered conflicting reasons for why she went into labor, alternately saying she had consensual sex and was raped, Hart said. The dead baby showed no signs of trauma, and an autopsy the next day failed to pinpoint a cause of death, Hart said.

Authorities say Hall acknowledged to her boyfriend during the baby's funeral Thursday that the child wasn't his, and that she had killed the mother to get it. The boyfriend, reportedly a sailor home on leave, told police, who arrested his girlfriend hours later, investigators said.

Hall has two children of her own. Koehler said they are "safe and sound."

Hall likely will be arraigned Monday on the two charges, each carrying a 20 to 60 years or life in prison, Haida said. The murder count could be punishable by the death penalty.

DNA tests should determine definitively whether the baby was the one Tunstall was carrying, Hart said.

Tzar
09-24-2006, 01:03 PM
that's some pretty...surreal shit, like, not even a horror movie writer would think of that.

what makes a person tear open a pregnant ladie's abdomen and take out the fetus... what are they going to achieve...

beastieangel01
09-24-2006, 01:10 PM
I really shouldn't have read that. The fact that things like this ever occur is so sickening. I want to vomit.

Waus
09-24-2006, 01:11 PM
What if that baby survived, and was only told where they came from years after this insane mother had raised it.


:eek:



But seriously, that's some crazy stuff.

The Notorious LOL
09-24-2006, 01:12 PM
doing laundry is bad enough. I think a find like that would traumatize me to the point of never washing clothes again.

Documad
09-24-2006, 04:53 PM
Some of these stories are so bad that it doesn't seem real.

In an earlier AP story, it mentioned that the police had been looking for the kids and then eventually found them at the own home. I wondered how hard they had been looking. But it makes sense that they didn't look in the washer and dryer. They were looking for hopefully alive kids and it's hard to wrap your brain around someone doing that to innocent kids.

It was also interesting that the friend who murdered their mom and cut out the baby was turned in by her boyfriend. I don't understand what she thought she was doing.

monkey
09-24-2006, 04:55 PM
my bf once put his baby sister (when they were kids) in the dryer, cause he told her it was a cool place to hang out.

their mom found her about half an hour later, because she was singing inside the dryer. she says it had great acoustics. hehehe.

QueenAdrock
09-24-2006, 04:56 PM
See, I don't know why the media reports this kind of shit. If they want to post about blood and gore, why not report about Darfur?

I guess because that doesn't scare the American public as much, seeing as how that's another country and stuff like this CAN HAPPEN TO YOU, HERE IN AMERICA!

But seriously, after I read stuff like this, I don't feel more educated, informed, or prepared for anything of this nature. It's after the fact and there's nothing that can be done to prevent stuff like this in the future. All that it does is make me think, "Wow. We have some fucked up people in this world." I guess that's what they're going for, though.

icy manipulator
09-24-2006, 05:01 PM
that's some fucked up shit

Documad
09-24-2006, 05:02 PM
QA, this stuff is the bread and butter of the news business. If the kids were white it would get a lot more attention though, so the media has to be bummed about that.

My mom became obsesed with true crime as she got older. Every weekend I'd pick her up she would list off all these stories: "did you hear about . . . ." etc. I begged her to quit watching CNN and Fox and told her that they give so much airtime to these stories and stranger abductions because they're unbelievably rare, but she never got it. I think there's a whole lot of old people like my mom.

QueenAdrock
09-24-2006, 05:05 PM
Exactly. My friend and I were walking around at night (when we were in college, mind you), on the main street in our town. Totally safe. White suburbia, you know. And her mom drove up out of nowhere and was like "Get in the car and come home! It's 1 AM, and I KNOW you heard about Laci Peterson on the news. That can happen to you."

Yeah, except it was done by a family member. A lot of shit like this is done by people who know the victim. I'd argue most shit like this isn't random. So there isn't a real reason to be scared, unless you have psychotic friends/family.

skra75
09-24-2006, 05:17 PM
doing laundry is bad enough.

hahahhahahahahaha

Kerrbear
09-24-2006, 10:43 PM
At least this article was probably printed in black ink on low-quality, easily-recyclable newsprint. I hate seeing all those glossy full-color magazines with Jessica Simpson and Britney Spears. They couldn't possibly matter less, and it will take forever for their bitchy faces to decompose in a landfill.