US & World News

EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. (AP) ― A woman was arraigned Monday on charges she killed her pregnant friend and her fetus, and a judge entered not guilty pleas on her behalf.

Tiffany Hall, 24, looked sullen as she appeared at the hearing via video conference from the St. Clair County Jail, where she is being held on a $5 million bond.

Prosecutors say she killed Jimella Tunstall, 23, and her fetus, which had been cut from Tunstall's womb.

According to authorities, she told police that she drowned Tunstall's three children -- ages 7, 2 and 1 -- and stuffed them into a washer and dryer. Preliminary autopsies on the children appeared to show they were drowned, said Ace Hart, a deputy St. Clair County coroner.

Hall has not been charged in the three children's deaths, but was charged Saturday with first-degree murder in Tunstall's death and with intentional homicide of an unborn child. The murder count could be punishable by the death penalty.

Police have not offered a possible motive.

On Monday, St. Clair County Associate Judge Heinz Rudolph read the criminal complaint, which did not go into much detail about the crimes other than a sharp object was used to cut open Tunstall.

When Rudolph asked Hall whether she planned to hire a private attorney or needed a public defender she replied simply: "I don't know."

Rudolph then appointed public defender Randy Kelley as her attorney. He also granted Kelley's requests for a psychological evaluation and that Hall be segregated from the rest of the inmates for her protection.

"Any time you've got a charge of this nature that has some volatility, I just think it's in her best interest, that she be protected from the influence of other inmates or possible harm to her," Kelley said after the hearing.

Preliminary autopsies on Tunstall's three children showed no signs of physical abuse or trauma and toxicology tests were pending "to see if they were poisoned or possibly drugged," Hart said.

The East St. Louis community turned to prayer Sunday to understand the slayings at a service for the family.

"This is an opportunity for people to turn to God," said Debra Kenton, a member of the New Life Community Church. "Who else can explain things like this?"

In the days after authorities say she killed Tunstall and her fetus, Hall went about everyday life, chatting with her daughter's elementary school teacher and helping her daughter with homework, Hall's mother, Beverly Cruise, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for Monday's editions.

Authorities suspect Tunstall was slain on or about Sept. 15.

That day, Hall summoned police to a park, saying she had given birth to a stillborn child, Hart said. She was arrested after she told her boyfriend during the baby's funeral that the baby wasn't his and that she had killed the mother to get it, authorities said.

Tunstall's body was found Thursday, and authorities began a furious search for her children. Police said the children were last seen with Hall last Monday.

Authorities had visited Tunstall's apartment Friday but noticed nothing amiss while looking for photographs of the children for media outlets to publicize in their search, Hart said.

Hart said he understood why investigators may have overlooked the children's bodies during their previous trip to the apartment. "Who would be looking in the washer and dryer?"

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

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

Mourners left stuffed animals outside Tunstall's apartment, its door crisscrossed with white evidence tape. There was a white teddy bear, and a stuffed race car with DeMond's name.

An autopsy showed that Jimella Tunstall 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. Hall has two children of her own. Illinois State Police Capt. Craig Koehler said they are "safe and sound."

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

The funeral for Tunstall and her three children has been set for noon Friday at Mount Pisgah Missionary Baptist Church in East St. Louis.

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