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Motel Manager Finds Baby, Personal Items In Room

Suspects Left Behind Baby Clothes, Bottles, Diapers

POSTED: 12:57 pm CDT August 1, 2007
UPDATED: 2:27 pm CDT August 1, 2007

Amanda Howard is nine months pregnant. The 18-year-old’s baby boy is due next week. Investigators believe they saved the lives of both of them in the nick of time.

Tuesday night, the manager of a motel where two teenagers were accused of holding a pregnant teen hostage with the intention of cutting her unborn baby from her womb showed a KCTV5 News crew what was left behind -- diapers, dirty clothes, bottles and even the maternity clothes.

Investigators said Lauren M. Gash, 19, of Odessa, Mo., intended to leave the mother to die after she took the baby.

“I couldn’t imagine anybody doing that, and I don’t know if I could have dealt with it myself, walking into something if that had happened,” said David Boan, the motel manager.

Investigators said Gash was not alone when she checked into this room at the Interstate Inn in Blue Springs.

They said Alisa D. Betts, 17, of Atchison, Kan., admitted she was in on the plan but got cold feet and called police.

By the time they arrived, the pregnant victim told police she'd been Maced, tied up and had her neck twisted so hard that she thought it was going to break.

She told police Gash even sat on her abdomen in an effort to subdue her.

Newborn baby clothes weren't the only things police found in the motel room. They also found scissors, a Leatherman utility tool, a tarp and an Exacto knife.

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