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Fetus cut from mother's womb reburied near family

07:32 PM CDT on Friday, October 10, 2008

ST. LOUIS (KMOV) -- An unborn baby who was cut from her mother’s womb in September 2006 was exhumed and reburied next to her slain mother and siblings on Wednesday.

Harmony Creshall Tunstall was cut from Jimella Tunstall’s womb on Sept. 15, 2006, by 26-year-old Tiffany Hall, who also admitted to drowning Tunstall’s three children.

After Tunstall bled to death in a bathtub, Hall dumped her body in an East St. Louis lot, St. Clair County State's Attorney Robert Haida said during Hall's trial earlier this year.

After killing Tunstall, Hall told police she had been sexually assaulted in St. Louis and given birth to a stillborn child after the attack. When police arrived, she had the dead fetus with her, claiming it was her own. She refused to be examined at a hospital, Haida said.

Three days later, Hall visited the father of two of Tunstall's children and the unborn child, Haida said. The father treated all the children as his own, and was caring for them, Haida said. Hall lied to the father, saying Tunstall wanted him to let her pick up the children and Tunstall's vehicle, he told police.

Hall then drowned the three children -- DeMond Tunstall, 7, Ivan Tunstall-Collins 2, and Jinella Tunstall, 1 -- in the same bathtub where she killed their mother, Haida said.

Authorities said Hall's story began to unravel on Sept. 21, 2006 at the funeral for Harmony, when she told her boyfriend, home on leave from the military, that the baby wasn't his and that she killed a pregnant woman and stole the fetus. He told police.

The bodies of the three children were found two days later hidden in a washer and dryer inside the East St. Louis apartment where the children lived with their mother.

Hall later told authorities that she "had contemplated taking Ms. Tunstall's unborn child for quite some time," Haida said. He said she bought rubbing alcohol, a sharp object and a nasal aspirator a week before the attack.

Hall was charged with four counts of murder and one of intentional homicide in the death of the fetus, which she cut from the mother's womb. She was sentenced to spend the rest of her life in prison without parole.

The Illinois State Police and L. King Funeral Chapel in Belleville, Ill., oversaw the exhumation and reburial of Harmony next to her mother, brothers and sister at Sunset Gardens of Memory cemetery in Millstadt, Ill.

Harmony had been buried under the name given to her by Hall at the time of the slaying.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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