A D.C. woman in a jealous rage rammed her car into her ex-boyfriend and his pregnant girlfriend, sending the girlfriend to a hospital where she gave birth to a 1 1/2-pound prematurely born baby, police said. According to court records, shortly before noon Thursday, 42-year-old Cynthia A. Duckett was driving just east of the Washington Convention Center when she spotted her former boyfriend and another woman walking on the 200 block of New York Avenue NW. Police said Duckett pulled the 2008 black Dodge Magnum to the curb, left her car in traffic and confronted the couple, and began making threats.
"Oh, she's pregnant? I don't [care]," Duckett allegedly told her boyfriend. "I'm gonna cut the baby out of that b---h."
The ex-boyfriend grabbed Duckett by her scarf and escorted her back to the Dodge Magnum.
That's when Duckett got into her car and stepped on the gas, police said. Witnesses told officers they heard the car's tires screech before the vehicle jumped the curb and onto the sidewalk. The car rammed into the ex-boyfriend and the woman, who was seven months pregnant.
The woman was knocked into the air, landed on the roof and rolled off, according to the police report.
Duckett then backed the car up and drove away before abandoning the vehicle and fleeing on foot.
According to the police report, emergency room doctors at Washington Hospital Center discovered that the baby's heart rate was dropping. Hospital staff performed an emergency C-section and found that the umbilical cord had separated from the child, police said.
A hospital employee said Tuesday that the mother had been discharged but that the baby was still a patient.
Detectives questioned the victim, who told them that she previously had a run-in with the suspect in the parking lot at her other child's school, and Duckett threatened to harm her there, too, police said. The girlfriend said Duckett was upset because she was dating her former boyfriend.
Two days later, law enforcement officials were able to track Duckett from cell phone records to a residence in Mount Rainier, and arrested her.
During an videotaped interview, police said Duckett admitted to confronting her ex-boyfriend, but she bumped her head as she was getting into her car, blacked out and did not remember what happened.
Duckett was charged with assault with intent to kill while armed. A judge ordered her held without bond.