A Calumet City man and his girlfriend conspired to kill a woman who was carrying his child so he could get out of being a father, Sheriff Tom Dart said Friday.
The body of Rosemary Newman, 18, was found in a Cook County forest preserve near Calumet City last weekend.
Deandre Minkens, 20, and Shante Thomas, 19, have each been charged with one count of first-degree murder and one count of intentional homicide of an unborn child. In court appearances Friday, Minkens was ordered held without bail and Thomas ordered held in lieu of $3 million bail.
Authorities said the attack on Newman had been planned out for weeks. Thomas hid in the trunk of a car while Minkens took Newman out for dinner. When they drove away from the restaurant after dinner, the volume being turned up during a song titled "I hate you" was Thomas' cue to jump out of the trunk and strangle Newman, prosecutors said.
When Newman didn't immediately die, the pair continued to beat her until she was unconscious. They then took her to the forest preserve, where her body was later found, and continued beating and strangling her, Dart said. She and her unborn child ultimately died.
Minkens and Thomas then went out to a nightclub, Dart said.
Newman's body was found by a man walking his dog near Freeland Avenue and Warren Street, hours later.
"This was very cold blooded. Very calculated. Very very tragic," Dart told reporters following Friday's bond hearing.
Her family told the Chicago Tribune that she was excited to become a mother.
