AP News, April 20th, 2007
A baby sitter already accused of killing a pregnant friend was charged Friday with drowning the woman's three children in a bathtub and hiding the bodies in a washing machine and dryer.
Grand jurors indicted Tiffany Hall, 24, on three counts of first-degree murder in the East St. Louis deaths last September.
Hall admitted she drowned DeMond Tunstall, 7; Ivan Tunstall-Collins, 2; and Jinela Tunstall, 1, Illinois State Police investigator David Bivens testified during a coroner's inquest last week. The coroner's jury ruled all the deaths were homicides.
Hall already had been charged with first-degree murder and faces a possible death sentence in the death of the children's mother, 23-year-old Jimella Tunstall. Hall also is charged with intentional homicide of an unborn child, Tunstall's 7-month-old fetus.
Hall has pleaded not guilty to those charges and remained jailed Friday on $5 million bond.
Prosecutor Robert Haida said he would announce later whether he would seek the death penalty for the children's deaths. "The senseless taking of the lives of defenseless children must be answered with appropriate punishment," he said.
One of Hall's attorneys, James Gomric, declined to comment Friday.
Authorities said the arraignment on the new charges likely won't be until next month.
During the coroner's inquest, Bivens testified that Hall admitted beating the pregnant Tunstall over the head with a table leg, then cutting her fetus from the womb in the bathtub.
Days later, Hall drowned the three children and claimed to have given birth to a stillborn child after being sexually attacked, but refused to let doctors examine her, Bivens testified.
During the baby's funeral six days later, Hall confessed to her boyfriend that the baby wasn't his and that she had killed the mother to get it, Bivens testified. The boyfriend notified police, who arrested Hall and eventually found the bodies of the other victims.
(This version CORRECTS that Hall was already charged with murder in the death of the children's mother, Jimella Tunstall, and with intentional homicide in the death of Tunstall's 7-month-old fetus.)
