A young Bronx woman who was desperate to have a child on Friday slit the throat of a nine months’ pregnant woman, carved the live baby out of her belly and then maniacally proclaimed that she had just given birth, sources told The Post.
“It’s my baby!” Ashleigh Wade allegedly insisted to cops arriving at the blood-soaked scene, where the placenta and umbilical cord from the gutted woman laid on the floor.
The police officers were called to Wade’s home in Wakefield at around 2:20 p.m. by her boyfriend, Angel Praylow, who had been summoned by Wade to the scene of the grisly slaying.
He was standing outside the home cradling the healthy newborn when the officers showed up.
Praylow had been posting pictures of sonograms and baby girl clothes on his Facebook page for months.
Praylow thought November 15 was Wade’s due date. But on Facebook that day, he wrote, “she not ready to come out yet.”
Wade, 22, had known the slain mother-to-be, Angelikque Sutton, also 22, since the two were kids, sources said.
Wade allegedly stabbed Sutton and then performed a crude Cesarean section, ripping the infant girl from her womb.
“The placenta was on the floor, and the perp had cut the cord herself,” a source said.
Sutton and her baby were taken to Montefiore Hospital, where Sutton was pronounced dead. The baby survived.
Wade was taken into custody at the scene and was being held for observation at Jacobi Medical Center.
Charges against her were pending.
Though Praylow thought his new daughter would arrive on the 15th, Wade had told neighbors she was due to give birth next week, said Mattie Sledge, a friend of Wade’s landlord.
“She (Wade) said she was due next Monday. She was kind of heavy,” Sledge said. “I’m really upset, we’re all upset because she was such a nice person. Something’s wrong with her. The couple was very nice.”
One neighbor described Wade sitting in the back of a police car after she was taken into custody, her hands covered in blood.
“I want to say she was in a state of shock because her face was expressionless,” said the woman, who gave her name as Taneka.
Authorities were seeking a search warrant to test whether Wade actually is pregnant, sources said.
“It looks like the baby was surgically removed,” Bronx Councilman Andy King said Friday outside Wade’s house.
“This is unforeseeable. With the holidays approaching, what a bloody way to start the season,” he added.
Sutton and the father of Sutton’s baby, Patrick Bradley, had registered for baby gifts on the baby-gift registry site The Bump.
“Due Date: Dec. 2, 2015,” read the registry listing, on which the couple sought a pink folding hamper, pink flannel receiving blankets and pink, bird-bedecked crib bedding.
“They are matching the blood of the baby to the deceased,” King said at the crime scene later Friday.
Additional reporting by Leonica Valentine, Aaron Feis and Laura Italiano