Husband recalls love in fetal-abduction case

Court video: Suspect details attack

MILWAUKEE — The husband of a pregnant Milwaukee woman who was killed and disemboweled last year said he told his wife he loved her on the day she disappeared.

Christian Mercado testified Wednesday in the trial of Annette Morales-Rodriguez. She’s accused of killing Maritza Ramirez-Cruz last year and trying to steal her full-term fetus in hopes of passing him off as her own.

Through a translator, Mercado told the jury he kissed Ramirez-Cruz that morning and said he loved her. Then he went to work.

He said he called his wife and talked a few hours later. When he called a second time, she didn’t answer. He said he got chest pains and left work to look for her but never saw her alive again.

Also on Wednesday, prosecutors played almost 40 minutes of a police video of Morales-Rodriguez telling detectives she beat the victim with a bat before choking her to death.

The video showed Morales-Rodriguez sitting in an interrogation room, where she sobs and sniffles and occasionally covers her face with her hands. She told police she planned to steal the full-term baby and pass it off as her own.

She’s charged with two counts of first-degree intentional homicide in the death of the mother and fetus.

Her attorney contends the homicides weren’t intentional because Morales-Rodriguez didn’t intend for anyone to die.

The trial is scheduled to end Friday.