A 28-year-old man in Missouri has been arrested for allegedly killing a 35-year-old pregnant woman and the child she was carrying, as five kids — all of whom were under the age of 10 — watched in horror.

Vanier J. Jones was taken into custody last week and charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the slayings of 35-year-old Christina Lynn Rentchler and her unborn child, court records reviewed by Law&Crime show.

Jones is also facing charges of armed criminal action, first-degree assault, endangering the welfare of a child, and unlawful possession of a handgun.

According to a probable cause affidavit obtained by Law&Crime, officers with the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department on April 23, 2025, responded to a call regarding a shooting at a residence located in the 4100 block of Farlin Avenue. Upon arriving at the address, first responders said they quickly located the victim, later identified as Rentchler, who appeared to be suffering from multiple gunshot wounds, including a single shot “in the back of the head.”

A subsequent autopsy performed by the county medical examiner concluded that the victim was in the second trimester of her pregnancy at the time of her death. The exam further concluded that Rentchler’s death was the direct cause of the death of her unborn baby.

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The affidavit also included a harrowing detail about the fatal shooting and who was forced to witness the alleged crime take place.

“In the house during the murder were five juveniles Victim 4, Victim 5, Victim 6, Victim 7 and Victim 8,” the affidavit states. “The juveniles’ ages ranged from ages of 2 to 10 years old. Some of these juveniles were [Rentchler’s] children.”

Following the shooting, investigators interviewed the eldest child at the hospital, who they said identified Jones as the shooter, adding that he had recently begun staying at the house with her and her family. The child also provided a brief description of what led to Rentchler’s tragic murder and how the child avoided suffering the same fate.

“She stated the Defendant had gotten angry and shot [Rentchler],” according to the document. “She stated that she then played dead, and heard the Defendant ask Victim 1’s children where their mother was prior to the Defendant killing Victim 1.”

After being taken into custody, Jones allegedly told police that he had nothing to do with Rentchler’s murder, claiming he was with an individual identified in the document as “Witness 1.” However, when police spoke to the witness in a taped interview, they stated that “not only was Witness 1 not with the Defendant when the homicide occurred, but that the Defendant admitted to Witness 1 that he had just killed a woman.”

Further investigation revealed that Jones had previously been convicted of multiple prior felonies and had “absconded from his federal supervised release at the time of the homicide.”

An Illinois man was arrested for allegedly attacking a pregnant woman with a lit “blunt” — also known as a marijuana cigar — which he allegedly forced her to swallow in a strange midday assault that also saw him try to clean the victim’s feet for some reason, cops say.

“I need to wash your feet,” Benjamin Schroeder, 25, allegedly told the woman before forcing her to take down the scorching hot cigar, which left burns in her throat, according to the local ABC affiliate WTVO.

A Tennessee man who called himself a “serial killer” in court and who is serving two life sentences for killing his pregnant girlfriend and her unborn child received an additional 159 years in prison for the murders of three other people.

Joshua Dotson learned his added fate on Friday after pleading guilty to the murders of Divieon Parker, Renita Bennett and Reginald Anderson, according to a press release from the Shelby County District Attorney’s Office.

The additional 159 years will run consecutive with his prior murder conviction in August, bringing his total sentence to 261 years in lockup for the five murders. Dotson was also convicted of the murders of his former girlfriend, Jamesha Covson, and her unborn child, resulting in two consecutive life sentences totaling 102 years.

A 16-year-old pregnant girl in California was mowed down and killed by a 19-year-old man after she confronted him for having sex with the victim’s underage sister, with a neighbor’s doorbell camera capturing her family’s gut-wrenching reaction to the alleged hit-and-run.

Issac Blackhorse Garcia, of Riverside, is accused of killing the teenage girl on Feb. 2 at around 11:45 p.m. that Sunday night, according to police. Neighbors witnessed the aftermath of the alleged hit-and-run and saw the pregnant victim lying in the street afterward. Her family was caught on video running over to her moments later as Blackhorse Garcia allegedly fled the scene. The girl’s baby was delivered at the hospital and is in critical condition.

Pregnant women across the country have been joining forces to file lawsuits against the federal government over the constitutionality of President Donald Trump‘s executive order ending birthright citizenship in the United States, according to court records.

Attorneys in Maryland, Massachusetts and Washington state have filed lawsuits on behalf of expecting parents in response to Trump’s order last week, which has been blasted as “blatantly unconstitutional” by federal judges as it runs into legal trouble.

Attorneys general of 18 states and two major cities, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., have also teamed up to challenge the order — filing a joint lawsuit last Tuesday, Jan. 21, in federal district court.

A Florida woman is behind bars for stealing from a Dollar General and attacking a pregnant woman, Sunshine State authorities say.

Maria Gritsaev, 34, stands accused of one count each of aggravated battery on a pregnant victim and petit theft by shoplifting, according to Flagler County Sheriff’s Office Jail records.

The incident occurred in early January, according to investigators. The defendant was arrested on Thursday.

On Jan. 2, deputies asked the public for help identifying the suspect. Law enforcement said the incident occurred at a store on Market Avenue at around 10:30 a.m. that day in Palm Coast – a medium-sized city roughly 30 miles north of Daytona Beach.

A software consultant, husband, and father of two claimed he woke up one week ago to find that his wife, 9 weeks pregnant, took her own life by overdosing on drugs even though she was neither suicidal nor a drug user and even though the evidence indicated the victim was strangled to death, Texas authorities allege.

Lee Mongerson Gilley, 38, remains behind bars without bond in Harris County in a capital murder of multiple persons case following his jail booking on Friday, Oct. 11, four days after the suspected strangulation slaying of 38-year-old Christa Bauer Gilley at her Allston St. home in Houston.

An armed Walgreens employee shot a pregnant woman he suspected of stealing lipstick seven times in a parking lot confrontation last year that prompted an emergency cesarean section to deliver the baby and lifelong health problems, a new lawsuit says.

Travonsha L. Ferguson, 25, was shot on April 12, 2023, at the Walgreens store at 2500 Gallatin Road in Nashville.

It happened when the employee, who didn’t identify himself, aggressively confronted, cursed and screamed at Ferguson and her friend about the alleged stolen merchandise, and Ferguson sprayed the employee with mace “in fear of imminent bodily harm to Baby Ferguson and herself,” court documents obtained by HuffPost said.

The shooting prompted an emergency cesarean section to deliver the baby prematurely. The boy survived, but the now 11-month-old has a heart defect, and his mother requires the use of a colostomy bag, court documents said.

The employee who shot her was terminated. He was not charged with a crime after he claimed self-defense, saying he didn’t know if Ferguson and her friend were armed and he feared for his safety and didn’t know if they were armed, police said in a news release.

“I would believe the situation of self-defense if one shot, but it’s impossible to shoot seven times with such accuracy if you’ve been maced — which he was not,” said L. Chris Stewart, Ferguson’s attorney, in a news conference, local CBS affiliate WTVF reported. “We believe it was sprayed at him or in the air when they were surprised — as any pregnant mother would do who gets surprised by somebody running up on them screaming slurs.”

Police said the bloodshed happened when another employee notified the store team leader that two females were stealing items. The team leader told police he started recording the women on his cellphone when he saw them placing items into a cart and a large over-the-shoulder bag, then followed them outside when they left without paying for the merchandise, police said.

He told police he made his way to the rear of the car as the women loaded items into the trunk. He pulled his semi-automatic pistol and fired after one of the women sprayed him with mace, authorities said he told investigators.

After the shooting, the women drove off, and he called 911.

The woman who was with Ferguson dropped her off at a hospital and drove away, officials said.

Ferguson was charged with assault and theft of $1,000 or less, court records show. Her attorney would not comment on the charges, according to local ABC affiliate WKRN-TV.

But he said shoplifting accusation or not, following her to the parking lot and shooting was “negligent and against policy, provided the employee had been trained properly, and Walgreens must be held accountable,” local NBC affiliate WSMV reported.

“Ms Ferguson did nothing at all to deserve to be shot this many times. A witness even said it sounded like the full clip was emptied,” Stewart said, WTVF reported.

Shantanica Ferguson said her daughter did not deserve this.

“It’s been a long ride, and it’s not fair,” she said. “She deserves justice.”

Walgreens did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Law&Crime, but in a statement after the shooting, the company said, “The safety of our patients, customers and team members is our top priority, and violence of any kind will not be tolerated at our stores. We take this matter seriously and are cooperating with local authorities.”

 

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An Alabama man was sentenced to life in prison for stabbing a pregnant woman in the throat a dozen times, killing her and her unborn child in Georgia.

Curteze Avery, 30, was sentenced to two concurrent life sentences in the deaths of Breanna Burgess and her 20-week-old unborn child. Prosecutors indicted him in October for malice murder and feticide. Avery will become eligible to seek parole in 2052, but the parole board will be authorized to reject his request, officials said.

A 32-year-old man in Texas will spend the remainder of his days behind bars for killing his 26-year-old pregnant girlfriend, shooting her in the back of the head only a few weeks after the couple held a gender reveal party for their soon-to-be twin boys, both of whom also died as a result of the shooting, records reviewed by Law&Crime show.

District Court Judge Robert P. Brotherton on Monday ordered Maurice Kelso Smith to serve a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole for the 2020 slayings of Darionne Burley and the unborn kids.

The sentence was formally handed down after a jury in Tarrant County found Smith guilty of capital murder in the fatal shooting. In capital murder cases where the state chooses not to pursue the death penalty, defendants convicted serve a mandatory life sentence without parole.

According to a report from Fort Worth, Texas, CBS affiliate KTVT, officers with the Mansfield Police Department on June 29, 2020, responded to a call regarding a woman who had been carjacked at gunpoint in the 1600 block of the North U.S. Highway 287 frontage road. The victim told the emergency dispatcher that the carjacker — later identified as Smith — had arrived in a different car, abandoned it, and then taken her car.

First responders made contact with the carjacking victim and then located the Honda Civic Smith had been driving before stealing the other woman’s car. Inside the Civic, police said they found Burley, who appeared to have suffered a gunshot wound to the back of her head, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.