An Indiana man has been charged with murdering his girlfriend and their preborn child in an appalling act of domestic violence.
Police arrested 22-year-old Regulus Baka after discovering 19-year-old Sha’Naiya Nicole McDonald had been brutally murdered. She had been punched, beaten in the head with a space heater and kitchen pan, and then stabbed, before Baka allegedly wrapped her face with tape, suffocating her to death.
“I just wanted her dead,” he said, according to court documents. He also admitted that she was screaming for help as he attacked her — screams neighbors could hear, which prompted them to call the police. Her body was eventually found by her roommate, who told police that McDonald had been pregnant with Baka’s baby.
Baka claimed that after informing him of her pregnancy, it was McDonald who began threatening to kill him, so he acted in self defense.
“He could have walked away instead of engaging with her and escalating the fight,” attorney Mario Massillamany told Fox59. “If his family was being threatened, why would he go back when the fight was over? He must not have thought the threats meant anything.”
After police responded to the scene, Baka was already gone; security footage showed him fleeing the apartment, and he was arrested after a SWAT standoff.
READ: Pregnant woman murdered after repeatedly asking police for help
“Unfortunately, we know that pregnancy actually increases risk for domestic violence and for death due to domestic violence,” Caryn Burton, with the Indiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence, told WTHR. “One of the leading causes of death for pregnant women is domestic violence and death due to assault by their partner.”
Baka has since been charged not just with McDonald’s murder, but of feticide, for killing their preborn child, too. “In Indiana, for the prosecutor’s office to be able to convict someone of feticide, they’ve got to be able to prove the individual knew she was pregnant at the time that he murdered her,” Massillamany said.
Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears said they were prepared to make sure he is punished for both deaths. “What’s alleged in this case is not something you see every day. I think it brings a light to domestic violence we see in our community,” he said, adding, “We certainly believe that we’re in a position to prove she knew or should have known she was in fact pregnant.”
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