She Ripped a Child From The Womb and Pretended It Was Hers | DNA

Heather Megan Snively was born on February 12th, 1988, in the quiet town of St. Albans, West Virginia. Located in the southeastern part of the state, it was the kind of close-knit community where everyone knew their neighbors. Heather’s early childhood was marked by the divorce of her parents, Heidi and Kevin, a separation that could have destabilized a young girl, but instead led to the formation of an extended, deeply loving family.

Her mother eventually remarried a supportive man named David Kidd, whom Heather warmly embraced as a father figure from the tender age of 3. As the years progressed, Heather became the oldest sister in a bustling household of five younger siblings, which included one brother and two step-sisters in West Virginia, along with two step-brothers living in Maryland. Her biological father, Kevin, fondly recalled her early years, describing her as an incredibly outgoing individual who possessed a rare and beautiful gift: she always looked for and found the absolute best in everyone she met.

This inherent kindness and bright disposition followed Heather as she grew into a young woman, shaping her interactions with the world around her and endearing her to anyone fortunate enough to cross her path.

During her teenage years, Heather attended St. Albans High School, where she actively participated in the school’s Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) program. This experience instilled in her a strong sense of discipline, camaraderie, and community service. Her faith was also a cornerstone of her life, and she spent much of her free time as an engaged, active member of the Green Valley Church of God in her hometown.

At a certain point during her high school career, her family made the decision to relocate to Edgewater, Maryland, opening a new chapter in Heather’s life. By the time she reached her early 20s, she had entered the workforce, holding down a series of customer service positions, first working diligently as a grocery store cashier and later taking a job at a local Popeyes restaurant. Neighbors in her Maryland community remembered her as a vibrant, modern young woman who was almost constantly connected to the digital world.

According to her former neighbor, Sandy Carson, Heather’s absolute favorite hobby was spending time on her computer, navigating the early days of online community marketplaces.

Heather quickly turned this online hobby into a highly practical venture, buying and selling a vast array of everyday household items on Craigslist. It was during this period of her life that she crossed paths with Christopher Popp, a man with whom she fell deeply in love. The young couple soon became engaged, filled with excitement as they began to map out the blueprint for a shared future together.

When Christopher managed to secure a promising employment opportunity out west, he moved ahead to Oregon to establish a stable foundation for them, leaving Heather behind temporarily to tie up loose ends in Maryland. While they endured the challenges of a long-distance relationship, Heather dedicated her time to selling off their remaining shared belongings on Craigslist to help make ends meet and fund her upcoming cross-country move. The couple remained in constant, loving contact throughout the separation, their bond growing stronger despite the thousands of miles between them.

In the spring of 2009, their long-distance romance was flooded with joy when Heather discovered that she was pregnant with their first child.

The news of the pregnancy brought an entirely new level of excitement to their lives, prompting the expectant parents to immediately begin preparing for the arrival of their son, whom they lovingly chose to name John Steven. Heather was eight months along in her pregnancy, with a due date fast approaching in July, and by every single account from friends and family, she was absolutely thrilled to become a mother. In May of 2009, with her belly round and her heart full, Heather packed up her belongings, left Edgewater, and traveled across the United States to Tigard, Oregon.

She was eager to finally reunite with Christopher and settle into their new home together just in time for the arrival of their baby boy. Meanwhile, only a few short miles away in the bustling Portland suburb of Beaverton, a completely different and far darker reality was unfolding. Twenty-seven-year-old Karina Elaine Roberts was living in a rental home on Northwest Mill Creek Drive alongside her boyfriend of five years, Yan Shubin, and her two young children from previous relationships.

Karina possessed a highly turbulent and complicated personal history, characterized by professional instability and strained interpersonal relationships.

Over the span of several years, Karina had bounced rapidly from one short-lived job to another, working briefly for a temporary placement agency, Macy’s, Michael’s, and FedEx, though none of these positions ever lasted very long. Court records arising from a bitter child support dispute with the father of one of her children revealed that she had abruptly quit her job back in 2007 under the guise of returning to school. During this period, she managed to get by solely on regular child support payments and college financial aid.

The father of that child, a man named Travis Tooley, later spoke openly to local media outlets, describing his brief past relationship with Karina as incredibly fraught and difficult. He characterized her behavior as profoundly childish, noting that attempting to communicate with her in a rational manner was an exercises in total futility. Travis pulled no punches in his assessment, stating bluntly to reporters that she was simply not normal, describing her as absolutely insane, as if she had a broken wire in her brain.

While Travis admitted he had no official knowledge of a formally diagnosed mental illness, his primary concern at the time was legally securing custody to get his daughter, who was then 10 years old, completely out of the state of Oregon.

The year 2007 had marked a devastating turning point for Karina, as she suffered a deeply traumatic stillbirth that altered her psychological state. According to those who were close to her at the time, the profound grief and psychological shock of the loss left her deeply, dangerously fixated on the idea of having another infant. She began spending hours watching graphic birth videos on YouTube, obsessively hand-sewing baby clothes, and telling people on and off for close to a year that she was pregnant again.

By the arrival of spring in 2009, this ongoing delusion evolved into an incredibly elaborate, deeply manufactured fabrication. Karina explicitly informed her live-in boyfriend, Yan, that she was pregnant once again, this time claiming that she was happily expecting twins. She began visibly taking daily prenatal vitamins in front of her family and falsely told acquaintances that she was enrolled in specialized midwife classes at a local community college.

To further legitimize the lie, she frequently mentioned upcoming ultrasound appointments she claimed to have scheduled, though investigators later confirmed no such medical appointments ever existed.

Despite the escalating bizarre nature of her behavioral patterns, there was absolutely no indication that Karina possessed a prior criminal record, nor had law enforcement ever had contact with her before. To the average person living in her immediate neighborhood, she did not stand out as an inherently dangerous or threatening individual. According to one of her neighbors, Terry King, the shocking nature of the crime would make anyone assume the perpetrator was visibly deranged on the surface, but Karina simply did not present that way.

Terry recalled that Karina always smiled warmly and waved politely whenever he happened to see her outside, noting that she had even joyfully told his wife that she was expecting to give birth very soon. By the final days of May in 2009, Karina’s elaborate preparation for a non-existent pregnancy began moving outside the walls of her home. She went so far as to set up a baby crib directly on her front lawn and purchased a used stroller at a neighborhood garage sale.

The neighbor hosting the sale, Wendy Persinger, found the purchase odd and asked Karina why she needed it, given that her own two children had long since outgrown a stroller.

Karina looked at her neighbor and answered simply, with a cheerful smile, “I’m pregnant, of course.” In tandem with these physical preparations, Karina took to the internet, posting an advertisement on Craigslist stating that she was looking to buy or collect second-hand baby clothes. Wendy Persinger later recalled the chilling normalcy of the interaction, stating that Karina just sat around casually chatting with them while she purchased the items.

Wendy’s mother-in-law had been the one to explicitly ask why she was buying baby gear when her current children were already quite tall. Karina had responded very cheerfully, appearing incredibly happy and entirely at ease with the massive lie she was living. It was through this targeted Craigslist advertisement for baby clothes that Karina’s path tragically collided with Heather Snively’s.

On the morning of Friday, June 5th, 2009, Heather climbed into her vehicle and drove toward Karina’s rental home located on Northwest Mill Creek Drive in Beaverton.

Investigators analyzing the timeline later determined that the two young women had likely only been in contact with one another for approximately one week prior to that fateful Friday. John Hall, Heather’s grieving grandfather, later remarked to the media that he did not believe his granddaughter had ever actually met Karina face-to-face before that morning. Whatever the exact nature of their brief digital interactions, the physical arrangement they had agreed upon was simple and entirely transactional.

Karina claimed to have a collection of baby clothes she wanted to give away, and Heather, who was heavily pregnant and operating on a tight budget, genuinely needed them for her son. What transpired the moment Heather stepped past the threshold of that rental house has never been fully or publicly laid out in official court documents. The horrifying sequence of events that took place inside must be pieced together through forensic evidence, physical witness statements, and the timeline provided by Karina’s boyfriend.

Yan Shubin had left the house for his regular job early that morning at 6:00 a.m., returning home for a routine lunch break at around 11:00 a.m.

During that brief lunch visit, Karina casually made him a sandwich, and Yan later reported that absolutely nothing felt out of place or unusual about her demeanor. He left the house once again to return to work, eventually stopping by his local bank branch at approximately 2:30 p.m. It was while he was at the bank that his phone rang; it was an urgent, frantic call from Karina.

She gasped into the receiver, telling him repeatedly, “I need you,” sounding as though she were in the throes of severe physical pain. When a panicked Yan rushed back to the rental home, he stepped through the front door only to find pools of blood staining the floorboards. He followed the sound of running water toward the bathroom, where he discovered Karina sitting inside the bathtub wearing nothing but a bra.

She was crying uncontrollably, trembling, and cradling a newborn baby boy in her arms.

Criminal investigators later theorized that sometime during the window between Yan leaving after lunch and making that 2:30 p.m. phone call, Karina launched a brutal attack on Heather inside the bathroom. She struck the pregnant woman somewhere between 15 and 30 times using a heavy, collapsible metal baton, directing the majority of the blows to the back of Heather’s head. Despite the sudden and overwhelming nature of the assault, Heather fought desperately for her life and the life of her unborn child.

She bit Karina hard enough to leave a deep, distinct mark on her arm and inflicted a violent scratch measuring nearly five inches long down the left side of Karina’s neck. In a final, desperate act of resistance, Heather grabbed her attacker, leaving a strand of Karina’s hair tightly clutched in her hand. The state medical examiner later determined that the extensive blows to the head had likely knocked Heather unconscious.

However, the autopsy revealed that it was not the severe head trauma that ultimately took the young mother’s life.

Heather’s official cause of death was determined to be a massive incision made to her abdomen and the catastrophic blood loss that immediately followed. Using a sharp blade, Karina cut open Heather’s abdomen and forcibly removed the eight-month-old baby boy directly from his mother’s womb. She then meticulously wrapped Heather’s lifeless body in a piece of carpet and concealed it within the cramped crawl space beneath the house.

With the body hidden, she ran a warm bath, climbed into the water with the stolen infant, and placed the frantic call to Yan. Investigators later uncovered a detail: Yan’s employment required the frequent use of industrial razor blades, and a brand-new pack had gone missing from the home two days prior. While no specific weapon was ever publicly confirmed by police as the definitive tool used in the extraction, the missing blades were deemed highly significant.

Detectives questioned Yan extensively about the missing tools during their initial interrogation.

The moment Yan laid eyes on the infant in the bathtub and realized the child was not breathing, he immediately began performing emergency CPR. Tualatin Valley Fire and Rescue received an emergency dispatch call to the residence at approximately 2:42 p.m. and arrived to find a frantic Yan still desperately administering chest compressions. Emergency paramedics rushed both Karina and the unresponsive infant to Providence St. Vincent Medical Center.

Hospital doctors worked feverishly to revive the baby boy, but despite their best medical efforts, they could not save him. While simultaneously treating Karina, who initially maintained her lie to emergency room medics that she had just given birth at home, doctors quickly realized the story did not align with physical reality. An immediate examination revealed there was absolutely no medical evidence indicating she had recently delivered a child.

Recognizing the signs of a horrific crime, the alert hospital staff immediately contacted local law enforcement.

Sheriff’s deputies arrived at the medical center at approximately 4:37 p.m. to secure the scene and question the suspect. By that time, back at the rental property, investigators had uncovered information suggesting that another heavily injured individual might still be on the premises. They executed a search of the Northwest Mill Creek Drive home and discovered Heather’s body hidden in the crawl space.

A subsequent forensic sweep of the home resulted in the seizure of several items, including the bloody collapsible metal baton covered in hair. They also recovered a sharp steak knife, a Winnie the Pooh comforter, an Eddie Bauer baby sling, and a crib bumper pad, all heavily stained with blood. Amidst the crime scene, detectives discovered an audio CD of Agatha Christie’s famous novel, The ABC Murders.

The book details a serial killer whose victims are systematically executed in alphabetical order, adding a layer to the scene.

Karina was officially placed under arrest at the hospital at a quarter to 6:00 that evening. According to official court documents, during a brief, unmonitored moment alone with Yan at the hospital, she leaned in and whispered a confession, telling him she had done a horrible thing. The shockwaves of the crime reverberated through Karina’s own family, leading one member to post a message on Facebook in the days following.

The post read: “Something truly awful has happened in my family. Please pray for us because we are going to need it.” Meanwhile, around 11:00 p.m. that same Friday evening, Christopher Popp grew sick with worry after calling Heather’s phone all afternoon and evening without an answer.

He walked into a local police station to officially report his pregnant fiancee missing, only to learn a short time later that she had already been found dead.

By the following morning, the horrific news had spread through the quiet neighborhood, and a small makeshift memorial appeared on the sidewalk outside Karina’s home. Passing neighbors left a teddy bear, a vibrant bouquet of flowers, and a heartbreaking handwritten note that read, “May God be with you.” The medical examiner’s finalized autopsy report determined that little John Steven had tragically never taken a single breath outside of his mother’s body.

Under the specific parameters of Oregon state law at that time, this medical finding carried massive legal implications for the prosecution. Because the infant had not drawn a breath outside the womb, prosecutors were legally unable to file a separate homicide charge for his death. They could only pursue a homicide charge for the murder of Heather.

During the initial press conferences, investigators stated publicly that Karina had actively reached out to several other pregnant women via Craigslist before settling on Heather.

Police issued a public plea, asking anyone in the Portland metropolitan area who had online or in-person contact with Karina to step forward. The local community was left reeling from the realization that a young pregnant woman had been targeted and murdered by someone she believed was a friend. The media quickly picked up the story, broadcasting the details of the Craigslist trap across the nation.

Initial news reports stated that Roberts was accused of killing the 21-year-old and attempting to pass the baby boy off as her own biological child. Authorities initially remained tight-lipped regarding whether Heather had tragically passed away before the child was removed or if she was conscious during the extraction. Christopher, entirely broken by the loss, confirmed to reporters that his fiancee had only been using the website to find affordable clothes for their son.

Heather’s stepmother spoke to journalists, stating that the family was in a profound state of shock.

She told reporters that Heather’s mother was trapped in a cycle of grief, desperately wanting to hear her daughter’s voice while knowing she never would again. Karina was formally held without bail at the Washington County Jail in Hillsboro, where staff placed her on a mandatory 24-hour suicide watch. On June 15th, 2009, a grand jury officially indicted her on four counts of aggravated murder.

At the time, these specific charges carried the potential for a death sentence under Oregon law. The prosecution argued that the aggravated nature of the murder charges reflected that Karina had intentionally attempted to kidnap and rob Heather before trying to conceal the crime. In addition to the aggravated murder counts, she faced one count of intentional murder and two counts of first-degree robbery.

During her initial arraignment, she entered a plea of not guilty to all charges.

During her highly publicized first court appearance, a somber atmosphere hung over the courtroom as the details were read aloud. The district attorney reiterated to the gathered press that the central legal issue surrounding the infant’s death rested entirely on the definition of a living human being. Under Oregon statute, a homicide charge required the victim to have been born alive.

Therefore, because the medical examiner proved the baby never took an independent breath outside the womb, no murder charge could legally be leveled for the child. Heather’s grieving mother spoke out, confirming that her daughter had walked into a trap under the impression she was exchanging baby clothes. At a subsequent bail hearing in November of 2009, Karina’s defense attorneys revealed her history of stillbirth.

Separately, Yan informed detectives that Karina claimed to have been taking heavy antidepressants ever since that loss.

A court-ordered psychological evaluation was conducted, but the findings revealed no signs of active psychosis or any other diagnosable mental disorder. Then, on October 6th, 2010—the very day her highly anticipated criminal trial was scheduled to begin—Karina abruptly changed her plea. She pled guilty to a single count of aggravated murder in direct exchange for a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

District Attorney Bob Herman later informed reporters that the plea agreement was reached only after intense negotiations. An earlier proposal put forth by the defense would have left the door open for potential parole in the future, a condition the prosecution refused to accept. Herman stated firmly, “I wasn’t going to go to the family with anything less than life without parole.”

He added that pursuing the death penalty before a jury would have introduced uncertainty and subjected Heather’s family to a painful trial.

When Karina appeared in court to finalize the plea, she looked noticeably smaller and more frail than she had in her initial mugshot. She wore green and white striped jail pants paired with a standard orange jail-issued shirt, her hair pulled back into a simple bun. She sobbed uncontrollably through the majority of the formal hearing, answering Judge Don Letourneau’s direct questions in quiet, single-word responses.

When the judge asked her plainly whether she was entering a guilty plea because she truly believed she was guilty, she choked back tears and replied, “I am taking responsibility because I am guilty.” The prosecution then formally laid out the graphic autopsy findings for the record, confirming the details of the attack. Heather’s fiance, Christopher, stood up to address Karina directly in the courtroom, his voice shaking with anger and grief.

He looked at her and said he would have preferred to see her face a death sentence for what she did.

“You’ve taken away my fiancee, my son,” Christopher said, staring across the courtroom at the woman who had shattered his life. “I don’t know what to say to you. You’ve got a long sentence ahead of you.” Heather’s father, Kevin, spoke next, standing before the court while a slideshow of photos documenting his daughter’s life played on a screen behind him.

He looked at Karina and said, “You took my daughter. My life is never going to be the same. You’ve messed up our family. My mom and dad have one less grandchild. I hope you never forget that.” Years later, Kevin admitted that he still struggled immensely with the weight of what had happened to his daughter.

He expressed a lingering sense of disbelief that anyone could commit such an act against someone as wonderful and full of life as Heather.

A written victim impact statement prepared by Heather’s mother and stepfather, Heidi and Dave Kidd, was read aloud to the court. They remembered Heather as a deeply happy, generous young woman whose vibrant smile had the power to instantly light up any room she walked into. Their statement pulled absolutely no punches, addressing the crying defendant directly through the written word.

“There is no punishment severe enough for what you did,” the statement read. “We hope you’re haunted every day for the rest of your life by what you did.” Today, Karina remains incarcerated at the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility in Wilsonville, Oregon, where she will spend the remainder of her natural life.

The tragedy of Heather’s death also prompted immediate legislative action within the halls of the Oregon State Legislature.

On June 15th, 2009—the exact same day Karina was initially indicted—Republican State Senator Bruce Starr introduced a new bill. The proposed legislation sought to officially add the knowing killing of a pregnant woman to the state’s list of aggravated murder factors. He referred to this specific classification as maternal homicide, aiming to close a loophole in the state’s legal framework.

At the time of the murder, Oregon was not among the 36 states that possessed functional fetal homicide laws allowing for separate prosecution. A federal version of such a law had been passed by Congress back in 2004. That federal law had been driven largely by the high-profile 2002 murder of Laci Peterson in California.

While the legal battles and legislative debates unfolded, Heather’s family focused on the heartbreaking task of saying their final goodbyes.

Her mother, Heidi, organized a memorial service in St. Albans, West Virginia, returning Heather to the community where she had spent her childhood. Simultaneously, Christopher and Kevin organized a separate celebration of life at her grandparents’ home in Maryland. In a cruel twist of fate, the family discovered that on the day Heather met Karina, she had mailed a card to her grandmother.

The card read: “Can you believe Mom and Dave are going to be grandparents?” The envelope was postmarked June 5th, 2009—the exact day she was killed. The card arrived at her grandmother’s house three days later, after the family had already received the news of her murder.

Following her cremation, Heather’s ashes were combined with those of her infant son, John Steven.

The combined ashes were divided between her two grieving parents, ensuring that mother and son would remain together forever. The simple description written on Heather’s official online memorial page encapsulates the tragedy: “Heather and her baby were murdered by someone wanting her baby as their own.” Years after the sentencing, Kevin took a film crew to one of Heather’s favorite childhood spots, Quiet Waters Park on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

Reflecting on the woman who stole his daughter’s life, he admitted that true forgiveness felt almost impossible to achieve. Despite the passage of time, Kevin stated that he still firmly considers himself a grandfather.

“I’m still a grandfather,” he said softly. “I just have to wait until I get to heaven for that.”

The phenomenon of a woman killing another pregnant woman to steal an unborn child remains rare in criminal history, but it occurs more frequently than the public realizes. Cases of this nature, often referred to by criminologists as fetal abduction, represent a deeply disturbing manifestation of psychological delusion and desperation. Within modern media, the most prominent examples of this specific crime include the cases of Lisa Montgomery and Taylor Parker.

The Taylor Parker case stands out as an exceptionally calculated and deeply distressing situation that received widespread national attention. Details of that case, including real-time body camera footage and extensive trial testimonies, have been profiled across true crime documentaries.

These rare cases continue to serve as a stark reminder of the lengths to which individuals consumed by dangerous fixations will go, leaving devastation in their wake.