A New Clipping for Erica Kay Richardson

I looked for, and found a bit, more information on the death of Erica Kay Richardson.

Sixteen-year-old Erica was brought to Dr. Gene Crawford by her aunt on March 1, 1989 for a safe, legal abortion. Erica's aunt had gone to Crawford because Washington Center Hospital considered Erica's pregnancy to be too advanced for a safe abortion.

Erica's aunt reported that Crawford left the girl unattended and bleeding for four hours after her abortion, then at 11PM carried her to the car and instructed her aunt to take her home and put her to bed.

Erica's aunt, a nurse, instead took the girl to Bowie Hospital Center, where she was admitted already in respiratory arrest. Erica died of an embolism (foreign matter or air in the bloodstream) shortly after midnight on March 2. Her uterus and cervix had been punctured during the 19-week abortion.

Erica's mother had not known that her daughter was going to have an abortion.

Very Little New Information

Rosael Rodriguez, age 27, died in January of 1986 after an abortion performed by Angel Acevado Montalvo in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The only information I had been able to gather on Rosael comes from pro-life web sites and the Social Security Death Records. Priests for Life posts a list of women who have died from legal abortions, including Rosael Rodriguez, who died in January of 1986 at the age of 27, according to Social Security. She had been born on April 2, 1958. Priests for Life cite a March 5, 1992 article in the Virgin Islands Daily News.

Human Life International mentions that abortionist Angel Acevado Montalvo was charged with manslaughter in two cases of maternal deaths from safe, legal abortion.

HLI also notes that after his conviction, Montalvo went right back to business doing abortions.
Priests for Life also cites one other death, that of Diane Adams, from that article. 

I finally found a United Press International snippet, published in the York Dispatch, noting that Montalvo had performed the abortion knowing that Rosael had only believed herself to be pregnant.

The Allegra Roseberry Clippings

Allegra Roseberry died in 1988 after being tricked into an unwanted abortion. Her doctors falsely told her that her pregnancy would make her ineligible for an experimental cancer treatment program, and that her 23 week fetus was "doomed" anyway. Allegra hadn't known she was pregnant because she'd needed fertility treatments 20 years earlier to conceive her son and her pregnancy symptoms were attributed to the cancer and medications.

Here are links to additional information I've gathered:

• "Widower sues over abortion on his dying wife," Atlanta Journal and Constitution, May 4, 1990
• "Suit names doctors, Emory in abortion, death," Atlanta Constitution, May 10, 1990
• Allegra Roseberry obituary

The Antonesha Ross Clippings

Here are links to new clippings I've gathered regarding the abortion death of Antonesha Ross:

• "Abortion clinic avoids fine after teen's death," Chicago Tribune, February 17, 2015
• "Licenses suspended after 3rd abortion death," Chicago Tribune, February 17, 2015
• "Closed abortion clinic wins court appeal over fine," Chicago "Clinic owner, state attorneys battle over fine," Chicago Tribune, February 17, 2015Tribune, April 14, 2015
• "Closed Chicago abortion clinic wins court appeal," Chicago Tribune, April 6, 2015

Stacy Ruckman: Photos and Clippings

I'd long wanted to find the photos of Stacy Ruckman, the goon who killed her, and her parents at the trial. I also found clippings with a lot of the information I'd already known. I'm sharing them here now.

• "Doctor negligent in three abortions, state panel says," Springfield News-Leader, March 7, 1990
• "Physician's work stretches across state," Springfield News Leader, June 9, 1991
• "Death, state inquiry shadow physician's practice," Springfield News-Leader, June 9, 1991
• "Doctor's abortions scar patients, peers," Springfield News-Leader, June 9, 1991
• "Delays, legal entanglements hold up licensing complaint," Springfield News-Leader, June 9, 1991

Two Criminal, One Legal, All Fatal

Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1885: Sylvia Sawdy 

In 1885, Harry McDowell began calling at the home of Dr. Truman Sawdy of Howard City, about 40 miles north of Grand Rapids, Michigan, to visit Dr. Sawdy's 21-year-old daughter, Sylvia. McDowell usually came on Sundays and in the evening, and also corresponded with Sylvia.

On December 10, Sylvia went to Grand Rapids by train, ostensibly to visit McDowell's mother. Dr. Sawdy heard nothing more from or about his daughter until the morning of Christmas Eve, when McDowell's father came to him, saying that he'd gotten a telegram or telephone call from his son. The senior McDowell said that Harry had told him that Sylvia was very sick and wanted her mother, Cornelia, to go to her.

Dr. Sawdy read the next day in the newspaper that his daughter was dead.

It came out in the trial that in November, Sylvia had consulted with Drs. Bodle, Hake, and Bradish, indicating that she was pregnant. Evidence indicated that McDowell had performed an abortion on Sylvia on December 23, and that she died that day. McDowell was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 15 years.

New York, 1934: Loretta Wilson 

Loretta Wilson

On Christmas day of 1934, the nude body of a young woman was found under a pile of leaves in a thicket near a highway south of New York City. One source says that truck drivers found the body, another says it was spotted by two truck drivers.

The young woman was estimated to have been dead between 12 and 24 hours. Eventually the date of death was determined to be December 23.

Laura and Joseph Devine, whose 19-year-old daughter, Loretta Wilson, had been missing since December 19, contacted authorities and were able to positively identify the body. An autopsy revealed that she had bled to death from complications of an abortion.

 
Loretta had left home at noon on the 19th, telling the landlady that she was going to see a doctor. Her husband of two years, William, knew better. Though initially he'd denied even knowing that Loretta had been pregnant, he later said he'd paid Dr. John H. Becker Jr., age 52, $55 for the abortion. He added that his wife's friend, Kay Dinger, had been present when the transaction took place.

William, whose profession is alternatively given as a chauffeur and a truck driver, came home from work on December 19 to find Loretta not home. He assumed that she had gone to Becker for the abortion since he'd made the appointment for the 19th. He went to Becker's office and learned that she wasn't there, and the next day he reported her missing.

Becker admitted to having been paid $2 for examining Loretta on December 17, but denied perpetrating the abortion. He said that she was supposed to return on the 18th but failed to show up. However, his assertion that he'd not seen Loretta after the 17th was challenged by a witness who picked Becker out of a lineup of seven men as the one he'd seen standing by a car near the area where Loretta's body was found.

Becker was found guilty and sentenced to between 18 months and three years in Sing-Sing.

One more note: Loretta's abortion was typical of pre-Roe abortions in that it was performed by a physician. 

New York, 1970: "Kimberly" Roe

"Kimberly" was 25 years old and 18 weeks pregnant when she underwent a safe, legal abortion under the new law, in New York City on December 23, 1970. During the abortion, she went into cardiac arrest and died, leaving behind two children.

The 1970 liberalization of abortion had made New York an abortion mecca until the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court ruling that abortionists could legally set up shop in any state of the union. In addition to "Kimberly," these are the women I know of who had the dubious benefit of dying from the newfangled safe-and-legal kind of abortion in pre-Roe New York:

• Pearl Schwier, July, 1970, cardiac arrest during abortion
• Carmen Rodriguez, July, 1970, salt solution intended to kill the fetus accidentally injected into her bloodstream
• Barbara Riley, July, 1970, sickle-cell crisis triggered by abortion recommended by doctor due to her sickle cell disease
• "Amanda" Roe, September, 1970, sent back to her home in Indiana with an untreated hole poked in her uterus
• Maria Ortega, October, 1970, fetus shoved through her uterus into her pelvic cavity then left there
• "Amy" Roe, January, 1971, massive pulmonary embolism
• "Andrea" Roe, January, 1971, overwhelming infection
• "Sandra" Roe, April, 1971, committed suicide due to post-abortion remorse
• "Anita" Roe, May, 1971, bled to death in her home during process of outpatient saline abortion
• Margaret Smith, June, 1971, hemorrhage from multiple lacerations during outpatient hysterotomy abortion
• "Annie" Roe, June, 1971, cardiac arrest during anesthesia
• "Audrey" Roe, July, 1971, cardiac arrest during abortion
• "Vicki" Roe, August, 1971, post-abortion infection
• "April" Roe, August, 1971, injected with saline for outpatient abortion, went into shock and died
• "Barbara" Roe, September, 1971, cardiac arrest after saline injection for abortion
• "Tammy" Roe, October, 1971, massive post-abortion infection
• Carole Schaner, October, 1971, hemorrhage from multiple lacerations during outpatient hysterotomy abortion
• "Beth" Roe, December, 1971, saline injection meant to kill fetus accidentally injected into her bloodstream
• "Roseann" Roe, February, 1971, vomiting with seizures causing pneumonia after saline abortion
• "Connie" Roe, March, 1972, cardiac arrest during abortion
• "Julie" Roe, April, 1972, holes torn in her uterus and bowel
• "Robin" Roe, May, 1972, lingering abortion complications
• "Roxanne" Roe, May , 1972, given overdose of abortion sedatives
• "Danielle" Roe, May, 1972, air in her bloodstream

From 1915 to 1997, Equally Dead

There are four women from the Cemetery of Choice whose abortions ended their lives on this date. I have very little information on the two criminal abortion deaths:

On December 21, 1915, 34-year-old Anna Hunt died at Chicago's Rhodes Avenue Hospital from complications of an abortion perpetrated that day by an unknown person.

On December 11, 1926, fifteen-year-old Emily Mueller underwent a criminal abortion somewhere in Chicago. She died on December 21. Midwife Magdelane Stegeman was indicted for felony murder by the Grand Jury on February 15, 1927. She was later implicated in the 1941 abortion death of Rose Smith. 

I know slightly more about the first of the two safe and legal abortion deaths.

Denise Holmes, a 24-year-old Australian woman living in Texas, decided to undergo a safe and legal abortion at Avalon Hospital in Los Angeles, California, on her way home for Christmas of 1970. She checked into Avalon Hospital (an abortion facility owned by Edward Campbell Allred) on December 21. During the abortion, Denise suffered an amniotic fluid embolism that carried pieces of fetal bone marrow into her lungs. She was pronounced dead by Allred at Avalon at 5pm. Denise is the first confirmed abortion death at an Allred facility. Other women known to have died after abortions at Allred's Family Planning Associates Medical Group chain of facilities include Patricia Chacon, Mary Pena, Josefina Garcia, Lanice Dorsey, Joyce Ortenzio, Tami Suematsu, Deanna Bell, Susan Levy, Christina Mora, Ta Tanisha Wesson, Nakia Jorden, Maria Leho, Kimberly Neil, Maria Rodriguez, and Chanelle Bryant.

I have the most information about the most recent death.

Dr. Earl McLeod

On December 20, 1997, 27-year-old Jennifer Halner went to Potomac Family Planning for a safe, legal abortion, to be performed by D&C. She was 6 weeks pregnant. Dr. Earl McLeod's anesthesiologist, identified in records only as Dr. K., started an IV, and Jennifer was hooked up to monitors. Jennifer  was transferred to recovery at 10:10 a.m. She was put on an oxygen mask but taken off the monitors. Ten minutes later a nurse noticed that Jennifer was still unresponsive. Neither McLeod nor the anesthesiologist assessed Jennifer, but instead verbally approved an odd request that a nurse had made for an anti-nausea drug which, of course, did nothing to help Jennifer. The nurse then requested a drug that would actually reverse the effects of anesthetics, and again, without assessing the patient, Dr. K gave his okay. It was then, more than fifteen minutes after the abortion, that a nurse noticed that Jennifer had no pulse and her pupils were dilated. She fetched Dr. K. He stared a second IV and began to perform CPR, using a pediatric-sized bag-valve mask totally inadequate for an adult patient. Meanwhile, McLeod performed two other procedures before entering the recovery room and finding his staff performing inadequate CPR on his patient.

It wasn't until around 10:42 a.m. that McLeod told somebody to call 911. Paramedics arrived and  immediately began appropriate resuscitation. They transported Jennifer to Shady Grove Adventist Hospital. After aggressive resuscitation efforts by ER staff, Jennifer's heart was restored to a stable rhythm, and she was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit, where she died at 4:15 a.m. on December 21.

 
The appalled paramedics reported McLeod to the medical board, which faulted him with failure to provide adequate and readily-available post-operative monitoring equipment, and failure to provide adequate emergency supplies. The board also required him to get his staff properly certified in CPR. McLeod also ran the Hillcrest abortion mill in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where Kelly Morse had died in 1996 after being inadequately resuscitated.

Who Was Clarence Shoere?

On December 19, 1921, 18-year-old housekeeper Marie Pickle died in Chicago after an abortion perpetrated by Clarence Shoere, who was identified as a nurse or midwife. Shoere was held by the coroner but not tried.

Marie, a native of Howe, Oklahoma, was a single Black woman whose occupation was listed as "Housework, general."

Keep in mind that things that things we take for granted, like antibiotics and blood banks, were still in the future. For more about abortion in this era, see Abortion in the 1920s.

Two Very Different Illegal Abortion Deaths

There are two deaths from the Cemetery of Choice on this date, 60 years apart, very different but both illegal. 

Illegal in 1923

On December 18, 1923, 40-year-old Sophia Hartozinski died at Chicago's County Hospital due to a criminal abortion performed there that day. The coroner identified midwife Mary Roback as having been responsible for Sophia's death.

Illegal in 1982

Myrtha Baptiste, age 26, had a safe and legal abortion of her 10 week pregnancy performed by Orlando Zaldivar at Woman's Care Clinic December 18, 1982.  Myrtha, a mother of two, arrived at the hospital in critical condition due to delay of transfer by the clinic staff. She bled to death from two uterine perforations. Zaldivar could not be reached for seven hours while hospital staff were struggling to save his patient's life.

Myrtha had evidently led a very sad life. The Tampa Tribune described her as "semi-literate" and noted that she had undergone four previous abortions. Zaldivar didn't seem too moved over his patient's sad end. His comment to the police was, "This ruins my whole week."

Because Zaldivar's license was inactive at the time he performed Myrtha's abortion, the CDC classified her death as being due to illegal abortion rather than legal abortion. This hides her death from statistics on legal abortion deaths even though Myrtha had no reason at all to suspect that her abortion wasn't legal. The other deaths at that facility -- Ruth Montero, Shirley Payne, and Maura Morales -- were counted as legal abortion deaths.

Newly added sources:

• "Woman dies after fifth abortion," Tampa Tribune, December 20, 1982
• "Abortion clinic being investigated after fourth death, Tampa Tribune, January 3, 1983

Doctors and a Midwife Over the Years

1874, Brooklyn Midwife

On December 16, 1874, Mrs. Christine Seifred died in Brooklyn from complications of a botched abortion. The coroner's inquest revealed that  Christine had gone to a midwife, Mrs. Johanna White, who had used instruments to perpetrate the abortion on December 6, causing the peritonitis that eventually killed Christine, who had been about three months pregnant. I have been unable to determine the outcome of the case. However, White was free in 1876, when she was implicated in the abortion deaths of Matilda Baringer and Mary Hermann.

1925, Chicago Physician

Dr. Lucy Hagenow

On December 16, 1925, 22-year-old factory worker Bridget Masterson died in her Chicago home from a botched abortion. John O'Malley, the father of Bridget's baby, committed suicide by gas after learning of Bridget's death. He left a note implicating "a lady doctor at 310 W. North Ave." This was the address of Dr. Lucy Hagenow. 

Hagenow was arrested and was indicted for felony murder by a grand jury on January 5, 1926, but the judge dismissed the charges. 

Hagenow, who had already been implicated of the abortion deaths of Louise Derchow, Annie Dorris, Abbia Richards, and Emma Dep in San Francisco, had relocated to Chicago, where she would find a more genial atmosphere for her criminal activities. Prior to Bridget's death she was implicated in the Chicago deaths of  Minnie Deering, Sophia Kuhn, Emily Anderson, Hannah Carlson, Marie Hecht, May Putnam, Lola Madison, Annie Horvatich, Lottie Lowy, Nina H. Pierce, Jean Cohen, and Elizabeth Welter. After the judge dismissed the charges against Hagenow for Bridget's death, she went on to perpetrate a fatal abortion on Mary Moorehead.

1981: New York Physician

Barbara Auerbach was 38 years old when she went to a New York hospital for a safe, legal abortion and tubal ligation, performed December 11, 1981. Two days later, she was discharged. On December 16, Barbara was vomiting and suffering from back pain and inability to void her bladder. She was admitted to Princeton Medical Center in Princeton, New Jersey. Doctors there tried in vain to save her life, but she died within three hours of being admitted. The autopsy showed that Barbara had an obstruction of her small bowel, which caused massive infection throughout her body.

1984, Los Angeles Physician

Dr. Edward C. Allred

On December 15, 1984, Mary Pena underwent a safe and legal abortion at San Vincente Hospital in Los Angeles. She was 43 years old and the mother of five. Mary had thought that she was 3 months pregnant, but doctors discovered she was at 22 weeks. After the procedure, Mary was bleeding so heavily that a hysterectomy was performed in an effort to save her life. The surgery was not successful, and at 1:50 am on December 16, 1984, she died while on the operating table. San Vicente owner, Dr. Edward Allred, slipped Mary's body past the coroner without an autopsy. However, when her death certificate was taken to Kern County Health Department they refused to accept it and contacted the Los Angeles Coroner. Mary's body was brought to LA County for an autopsy. Only then was it revealed that she had bled to death from cervical lacerations. Once a cause for the fatal hemorrhage was determined, the death certificate was accepted, and Mary was laid to rest.

San Vicente had been purchased by National Abortion Federation member Familiy Practice Associates Medical Group shortly before Mary's death. Other patients known to have died after abortion at Allred's facilities include

• Denise Holmes, age 24, December,1970
• Patricia Chacon, age 16, March, 1984
• Josefina Garcia, age 37, May, 1985
• Lanice Dorsey, age 17, February, 1986
• Joyce Ortenzio, age 32, June, 1988
  
• Tami Suematsu, age 19, August, 1988
• Susan Levy, age 30, May, 1992
• Deanna Bell, age 13, September, 1992
• Christina Mora, age 18, November, 1994
• Ta Tanisha Wesson, age 24, February, 1995
• Nakia Jorden, December, 1998
• Maria Leho, June, 1999
• Maria Rodriguez, age 22, March, 2000
• Kimberly Neil, May, 2000
• Chanelle Bryant, age 22, January, 2004

New York, 1993 (1998) Physician

Venus Ortiz

Venus Ortiz, was 23 years old when she went for a safe, legal abortion at National Abortion Federation member Eastern Women's Center in New York on February 24, 1993. Evidence indicated that the abortion of Venus' approximately 15-week pregnancy was performed by Dr. Leiber. Due to negligence in administering anesthesia to Venus, she went into cardio-respiratory arrest. Staff failed to notice and treat the arrest promptly and properly. Venus was left in permanent need of respirator, with profound brain damage. Venus remain in a coma/vegetative state until her death five years later in a Staten Island nursing home on December 16, 1998 at the age of 29. Two other patients, Dawn Ravenelle and Dawn Mack, also died of complications of abortions done at Eastern Women's Center. 

Other women who suffered severe brain injuries and died years later from those abortion complications include:

• Suzanne Logan, who languished, mute and paralyzed, for three years until her death on December 1, 1992
• Shelby Moran, who was cared for in a nursing home for over 20 years until her death on September 16, 1999
• "Gabriella Alonso," who spent six years in a coma until her death in the summer of 2002
• Christi Stile, who spent nearly 22 years in a vegetative state until her death on March 29, 2015