Teka Adams now cuddles her infant daughter, Miracle Sky. The little girl, swaddled in pink, sleeps peacefully. But after what they've already been through, it's a wonder they're alive today.
For more than four days, Adams was held hostage at a Prince George's County, Md., apartment, where she said a woman tied her up, gagged her and used several knives to try to cut out her unborn baby girl.
"She hit me over the head about three times with a cast iron fireplace poker," Adams said. "She told me what she was getting ready to do and I bust out crying."
Adams described how the woman, Veronica Deramous, allegedly proceeded to cut her belly. "I was shaking and sweating because the pain was so excruciating that it got to a point where I just couldn't feel it anymore."
Adams' ordeal started in early December when she was down on her luck and staying at a D.C. homeless shelter. She said Deramous lured her away with the promise of baby supplies and clothes. She ended up at the woman's Suitland, Md., apartment where Adams said Deramous gave her lunch and then started beating her with a fireplace poker. Adams said she was left bloodied on the kitchen floor.
"She started cleaning the walls in her apartment, and she kept pacing the floor talking about how she couldn't have the blood in her house because her son was coming home and she didn't know how to explain it to her son," Adams said. "And I am hearing all this, but I'm like just laying there because I don't want her to kill me. Simple as that."
Adams eventually escaped from the apartment and gave birth to her daughter by Cesarean section. Deramous was arrested and charged with attempted first-degree murder, false imprisonment and other counts.
After being asked what Adams would say to her attacker today, she replied, "I would just ask her why she did it."
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"I don't hate her," she said. "I hate what she did."
