Pregnant woman who answered Craigslist ad for baby clothes has foetus cut from womb

The suspect arrived at hospital with the baby and claimed she had miscarried

The scene where a woman allegedly stabbed a pregnant woman in the stomach. (KCNC )

A Colorado woman who advertised baby clothes using a Craigslist classified advert brutally beat a pregnant woman and cut her foetus from her womb, police have said.

Police were called to a house in Longmont, 30 miles from Denver, at around 2:45pm. When they arrived, they could hear the victim, 26, screaming for help.

Inside the property, they discovered the victim had been beaten and stabbed in the stomach with a knife, the Longmont Times-Call reported.

“When she [the pregnant woman] got here, she was assaulted and stabbed, and her baby was removed,” Longmont Police Commander Jeff Satur told CNN, adding the two women were strangers.

The victim was rushed to Longmont United Hospital where she underwent surgery.

She is expected to recover. However, her baby did not survive the ordeal.

Police believe the suspect, 34, is mentally ill, as she arrived at the hospital with the baby and claimed to have suffered a miscarriage, Satur said.

Officers arrested her at the hospital on suspicion of attempted first-degree murder, first-degree assault and child abuse knowingly and recklessly resulting in death.

Satur added that the suspect has two children, and was driven to the hospital by her husband, before he returned to the scene. He has not been arrested and is not a suspect.

Boulder County District Attorney Stan Garnett told the Longmont Times-Call that laws in Colorado regarding unborn children are “complicated”.

“In most circumstances, if a child was not actually born alive, then homicide charges are not possible. With a case like this, most of the time charges would not need to be filed until sometime next week," he said.

The incident highlights the potential dangers of online classified websites, and comes after a man and his wife were killed in Georgia earlier this year while they tried to buy a car through Craigslist.

The seller has since been charged with murder.