Mom 8 Months Pregnant Shot in Stomach and Killed, Baby Fighting for His Life
Few crimes cut as deeply as those against infants, and violence aimed at pregnant women is doubly heinous. Indeed, a recent tragedy in Columbus, Ohio, shows just how true that is.
On Jan. 1, what police believe started as an armed robbery on South Hague Avenue in Columbus turned into murder. The attack claimed the lives of twenty-somethings Marlazia Jones and her boyfriend, Keith Williams.
Horrifically, Jones was 35 weeks pregnant. When first responders got to her, they found she’d been shot multiple times in the stomach.
That could’ve been the end of the story — a terrible and tragic conclusion. But crews managed to get Jones to the hospital and brought little Markeith Kamar Jones Mattox Williams into the world.
However, they couldn’t save Jones or Williams, so little Markeith faces a future without parents by his side.
“[Marlazia] loved the world,” her stepmother, Tyra Mattox, told WCMH.
“She loved her sisters and brothers. This is just senseless.”
Sadly, Markeith isn’t out of the woods himself. During his delivery, he went without oxygen for several minutes.
He needed a blood transfusion to survive, and his temperature skyrocketed. Doctors started cooling his body in an attempt to regulate it.
But his family believes that he has the strength and the will to survive. “He’s a strong boy,” his maternal grandmother Yvonda Jones told WSYX.
“He looks so beautiful. … I really think God is going to pull him through.”
Jones also had harsh words for the murderer. “They just better remember, what goes around comes around.
“God does not like ugly. You are not going to get away with it.”
GoFundMe accounts have already cropped up to help the family handle hospital bills and funeral arrangements.
But no matter the amount raised, Markeith’s grandfather Jack Mattox has said that he’ll give his all to help the tiny baby.
“I’m going to be there for him every day,” he said. “He’ll be well taken care of, believe me.”
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