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The cut-out baby

Women would kill for this little fella...

Published by: Henry Austin and Jean Jollands
Published on: 31 May 2012

My stomach tightened as I read the scraps of paper my daughter Jamie had just handed me. They were meant for my parents. Congratulations, they read. You're going to be a super grandmother and grandfather...
It had taken me a while to realise what it meant. ‘Are... are you pregnant?!' I stammered.
‘I'm sorry, Mama,' Jamie, 21, replied tearfully. ‘I just didn't know how to tell you.'
Seeing her so scared, my heart broke. ‘Don't worry,' I said, hugging her as she sobbed on my shoulder. ‘It'll be all right, don't you worry.'
But I was worried. After rebelling as a teen, Jamie had only recently graduated from high school. Then there was her partner James Reynolds, 25. Although he and Jamie loved each other dearly, he'd made it clear he wasn't ready to settle down yet.
I knew he'd support his child whatever, but they'd still struggle with money. If only I could help, but neither me nor my partner Mike, 56, a construction worker, could help much financially.
Jamie looked so worried though, she looked just like a little girl again. So the least I could do was protect her from worry as much as possible. ‘You're going to be the best mummy ever,' I promised.
Me and my Baby Girl - my pet name for Jamie - had always been close. I'd lost my first daughter Kimberly to cot death when she was just two months old. And then, when Jamie was just two years old, me and her daddy split. All that had meant we shared a strong bond.
When her big brother Eric, 29, left home, we'd grown even closer. It was me and Jamie against the world, and I knew we could take on anything together.
And that's exactly what we did. As Jamie's belly grew bigger, you could almost touch her excitement. ‘How do you bath a baby properly, Mum?' she asked, poring over baby magazines. ‘How often should I do a feed?" It was hard to believe my little girl was going to be a mamma herself.
I was there holding her hand at her 20-week scan. ‘You're expecting a baby boy!' the sonographer said, peering at the screen.
‘A boy!' Jamie whooped. ‘I don't believe it !'
‘Congratulations, love,' I sobbed with happiness.
She decided to name him Isaiah Allen Stice Reynolds, writing each letter up proudly with a marker pen on the fridge noticeboard. Though depending on what mood she was in with James, sometimes the ‘Reynolds' was rubbed out!
Money was tight but, by scrimping and saving, we bought a cot, some cute babygros and toiletries. Mike volunteered to decorate the nursery.
‘I want it decorated with frogs!' Jamie announced.
She was determined now to get herself a good career to provide for her little boy. ‘I've made an appointment at the local college,' she said one day, as we went through her baby book. ‘I want to do a course in social work - anything to do with children.'
That night, I chatted about it to Mike. ‘You know, I think motherhood will be the making of our Jamie,' I smiled.
The pregnancy was bringing her new friends, too. About six-and-a-half months into Jamie's pregnancy, out of the blue, we both got friend requests on Facebook from a woman called Kathy Michelle Coy.
I didn't know her, but she explained she was a cousin of my friend Becca, 26, who I'd known since she was a baby. ‘She's a little nuts,' Becca explained. ‘But her heart's in the right place.'
Her word was good enough. ‘It's only Facebook,' I thought, accepting Kathy - it wasn't as if we had to be best pals.
Jamie accepted, too, and she and Kathy got chatting. A month later, they decided to meet up. Kathy, 34, a brunette mum of two, seemed friendly.
‘I'm pregnant, too,' she boasted, patting her baby bump. Jamie was happy to have another expectant mum to swap baby talk with. And when she started worrying about having enough money, Kathy reassured her.
‘There's lots of help out there if you know where to look,' she soothed. ‘My friend's got a baby shop that's closing down, you can probably get some bargains.'
After that, Kathy popped round a lot, taking Jamie out to treat her to more baby clothes. It was a massive help, especially as I'd just been laid off from my customer services job.
She even drove Jamie to her midwife appointments, and helped her get her medical card.
The only time we ever fell out was when she encouraged Jamie to get her own place. ‘Look,' I told her, ‘Jamie has no job and no car. She needs her family around her.'
‘Course,' she replied. ‘Sorry.'
‘No hard feelings,' I smiled.
One night, me and Jamie sat on her bed, chatting and giggling. ‘You are my sunshine, my only sunshine,' we sang in unison, patting her bump. It was her favourite song, and Isaiah kicked along in appreciation!
Kathy's baby was due any day now, but Jamie still had over a month to go. ‘I can't wait to meet you, little man,' my daughter whispered gently.
The following morning, Kathy offered to drop me off in town and then went back to ours to pick up Jamie for another shopping trip.
A few hours later, my mobile beeped. A text from Kathy... I've gone into labour, it read.
An hour later, I got another text. It's a boy! Called Kayden!
I couldn't wait to share the happy news with Jamie. She's back at your place, Kathy text.
But back home, there was no sign of Jamie, there was no note - there was nothing. ‘That's not like her,' I thought, dialling her phone. ‘She always lets me know where she's going.'
Her phone went straight to voicemail. I tried James and her pals, but no one had seen her. I messaged her on Facebook, fighting the worry that was rising. Give me a call please, Jamie, I wrote.
When I still hadn't heard from her by 5pm that evening, I decided I'd at least go to see Kathy at the hospital. But when I got there, a nurse insisted it wasn't possible. ‘There's been complications,' she said, refusing to explain.
God, poor Kathy!
I tried calling Jamie again to see if she knew what was going on. Still no answer. And, to be honest, I was starting to panic.
Back home, Mike and a few others went out searching for her, while I hit Facebook, desperate to find out if anyone knew where my girl was. Finally, around 11.30pm there was a knock at the door.
It was two policemen - but I hadn't told the police my daughter was missing...
‘Is Jamie here?' one asked.
They just fired questions at me. When had I last seen her? What she was wearing? How had she seemed? Desperate, I explained that she'd planned to go shopping with Kathy, who'd gone into labour later.
Finally, they asked to swab my DNA. ‘Why?!' I begged.
‘Standard practise,' the policeman replied, putting the cotton bud in my mouth. Then they saw themselves out.
What was happening? Please God, let Jamie be okay.

I stayed on Facebook until 4.30am, racking my brain for anyone I could contact.
Two hours later, the police were back. Mike got there first...as he turned to me, tears trickled down his cheeks. ‘She's gone. She's gone,' he wept.
I could hear someone screaming. Then I realised it was me. I passed out cold with shock. When I came round, the terrible truth remained.
‘Jamie's dead,' a policeman confirmed to me.
‘No,' I begged. ‘Not my Baby Girl.' She had her whole life ahead of her. She was about to become a mum.
‘What happened?' I whispered softly.
‘Kathy Coy,' a policeman admitted. ‘But you don't need to know the details at the moment...'
‘Kathy? Kathy killed Jamie'? I sobbed. This nightmare couldn't be happening - Kathy was our friend. She wouldn't kill Jamie!
‘What about the baby?' I pleaded, praying for a miracle.
‘He survived,' an officer said. ‘He's at the hospital.'
‘Isaiah... Isaiah,' was all I could say. On the fridge, his name was still spelled out. Jamie had been so excited about meeting him. Now she never would.
Shell-shocked, we rushed to see him. James, devastated, was already there by his son's side.
Isaiah was five weeks premature, weighed just 4lb 9oz, and was hooked up to tubes keeping him alive. Meeting my little grandson should have been one of the happiest days of my life, instead I was twisted in grief.
‘Your mummy loved you so, so much,' I wept, squeezing his tiny fingers.
‘Isaiah might not make it,' a doctor warned us. I couldn't bear the thought of losing him, too.
Four days later, we buried my Jamie, singing ‘You are my sunshine,' at her grave. We placed some pictures of her son with her, so they could be together again.
Four weeks later, Isaiah was finally strong enough to come home. He was the image of his mummy when she'd been a tot, with those big blue eyes, curly dark hair. That was hard, bittersweet - but also comforting. He was the little bit of Jamie I had left, and helping his daddy look after him gave me a reason to keep going.
‘You've got to stay strong, for Jamie's sake,' Eric and Mike urged me.
In March this year, I finally came face to face with Kathy Coy as she was sentenced at Warren County Court in Bowling Green, Kentucky. In her orange prison jumpsuit, shackles at her feet, she didn't even have the guts to look me in the eye.
To escape the death penalty, she'd pleaded guilty, but mentally ill, to killing Jamie - and taking her baby boy alive from her womb.
From the day I'd heard the terrible news, I'd tried so hard to blank out terrifying images of how my daughter might have suffered. Now, I gripped Jamie's high school necklace for strength as I was forced to listen to every gruesome detail.
The court heard that Kathy had miscarried her baby before we'd even met her.
In a desperate bid to keep her husband, she'd targeted pregnant women on Facebook, targeting Jamie, and exaggerating her own ‘baby bump'.
‘No wonder she'd been so keen to make sure Jamie was all right,' I thought bitterly. ‘She was like a farmer fattening up cattle.'
She'd tricked my daughter into leaving with her for that bogus shopping trip. Then she'd shocked her with a stun gun, before slitting her wrists.
Jurors gasped in horror as they heard how Kathy then cut Isaiah from Jamie's body - along with her uterus, ovaries and placenta.
My poor, poor baby. She'd endured a living hell.
Police had arrested Coy at the hospital after she arrived with Isaiah, showing no sign of having given birth. They searched her home computer, finding links to two pregnant women on her Facebook page. One woman was tracked down, unhurt. But there was no sign of my Jamie.
Eventually Kathy had confessed, leading the detectives to find Jamie's body - dumped on a dirt road.
Blind hatred coursed through me. I wanted Kathy to suffer the way my Baby Girl had. How could she do that to another human being?
I felt guilty, too. Could I have protected Jamie from Kathy? No - who could have known the horror that she would inflict?
Judge John Grise said that the word ‘evil' was often over-used. ‘But here, however, evil was at work,' he added, sentencing Kathy to 99 years with no chance of parole.
Isaiah has just celebrated his first birthday. He lives with his daddy now, but I see my little grandson regularly.
He's a cheeky, chubby thing and has so many of Jamie's ways. Like when he accidentally drops his toy and gives that startled look as if to say: ‘How'd that get there?'
Jamie used to do the exact same thing. My Baby Girl lives on in her baby boy.