N.Y. Woman Allegedly Stabbed Pregnant Friend on Her Wedding Day And Stole Baby From Her Womb

Ashleigh Wade faces life in prison without parole

A Bronx woman is on trial for allegedly stabbing a pregnant woman to death on her wedding day and cutting the unborn child out of her abdomen.

In court on Monday, prosecutors alleged that Ashleigh Wade lured childhood friend Angelikque Sutton with the promise of giving her a wedding gift. Sutton, who was on her way to the courthouse to marry fiancee Patrick Bradley, stopped by Wade’s home. Prosecutors say that when Sutton arrived, Wade slit her throat so that she couldn’t scream, and then removed a healthy baby boy from her uterus.

“The defendant cut Ms. Sutton’s larynx, her voice box,” Assistant Bronx DA Meredith Holtzman alleged to the jury on Monday. “Ms. Sutton could not scream, could not say a word.”

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“What the defendant did to her next is almost unspeakable,” Holtzman alleged as the jury sat in stunned silence. “After she had rendered Ms. Sutton unable to scream, the defendant took a kitchen paring knife and sliced Ms. Sutton’s abdomen open.”

“Once she had cut Ms. Sutton’s abdomen open, the defendant cut Ms. Sutton’s uterus entirely out,” the prosecutor continued. “She cut that uterus open, took the baby out, and discarded that uterus on the bathroom floor.”

The prosecution alleges that Wade pretended to be pregnant for months before the attack. The child survived the stabbing, and Wade allegedly claimed the child was hers.

While prosecutors showed grisly photos of the alleged attack to the jurors, Wade covered her face and wiped away tears.

Defense attorney Amy Attias raised the possibility that Wade had mental issues. “Something could have gone horribly and terribly and tragically wrong within Ms. Wade’s own mind,” she told the jurors.

Wade, who has pleaded not guilty, faces life in prison without the possibility of parole. Her attorney did not immediately return PEOPLE’s calls for comment.