Woman Heads to Trial for Killing Her Pregnant Friend and Stealing Unborn Child

A Massachusetts woman charged with murdering her pregnant roommate and stealing the fetus to pass off as her own is headed to court this week to begin her trial.

39-year-old Julie Corey was arrested in 2009 after she strangled and beat her pregnant friend Darlene Haynes to death, cut her open, and stole her unborn child.

"Her intention was to take the baby away from Darlene Haynes," said Assistant District Attorney Dan Bennett during the trial’s opening statements. Bennett also said that Corey faked her own pregnancy for months before murdering 23-year-old Haynes and stealing her child.

Corey allegedly told her boyfriend that she had given birth to the baby following the incident, and actually convinced him that Hayne’s child was theirs. The couple took the baby and moved to New Hampshire right after the brutal murder and kidnapping, but it was there that authorities caught up with them after finding Haynes body still in the apartment. Corey’s boyfriend was never charged in the case.

As the trial begins, Corey’s lawyer claims that she is innocent. The defense will argue that there is no evidence to show that the woman murdered Haynes, and they claim that Corey actually obtained the baby legally. Corey has been in prison since being arrested.

Haynes' baby is alive today and living with its biological father.