Woman accused of murdering pregnant childhood friend before cutting out her whole uterus, stealing her baby

A Bronx woman is accused of methodically cutting her childhood friend's throat on her wedding day so she couldn't scream before cutting her entire uterus out to steal her baby girl before dumping the deflated organ on the bathroom floor. 

Angelikque Sutton, 22, was nearly nine months pregnant and on her way to the courthouse to marry Patrick Bradley when she stopped by the Bronx home of her friend, Ashleigh Wade in 2015. 

But Wade, who unsuspectingly lured Sutton to the apartment by promising her a gift, had other plans for Sutton, prosecutors said during the opening statements of her first-degree murder trial on Monday. 

Wade allegedly cut Sutton's throat, preventing her to scream before cutting her baby girl from her womb.  

'This was an attack that took place in stages,' Assistant Bronx DA Meredith Holtzman told the jury during Wade's trial. 

She said Wade had feigned pregnancy in the months prior to the horrific murder.

'The defendant attacked Ms. Sutton by stabbing and slashing her repeatedly in the face and neck,” Holtzman said. 

'The defendant cut Ms. Sutton's larynx​ ​— her voice box. Ms. Sutton could not scream, could not say a word. She cut her major blood vessels.

'What the defendant did to her next is almost unspeakable.

'Because after she had rendered Ms. Sutton unable to scream, unable to move, the defendant took a kitchen paring knife and sliced Ms. Sutton's abdomen open at the bottom half.

Ashleigh Wade (left) has pleaded not guilty to killing Angelikque Sutton (right).

'Once she had cut Ms. Sutton's abdomen open, the defendant cut Ms. Sutton's uterus entirely out. She cut that uterus open, took baby Jenasis out, and discarded that uterus on the bathroom floor.'

Jurors were shown grisly photos of the bloody crime scene along with Sutton's butchered remains and her deflated uterus that was left on the bathroom floor. 

Amazingly, Sutton's daughter survived the vicious attack and is now a thriving 22-month-old. 

Holtzman called the girl's survival'proof of the calculation and precision of the attack.'

'The defendant needed for Ms. Sutton to die, and she needed for Jenasis to live,' Holtzman said, as she later explained how Wade told friends and family members she was pregnant. 

'She had baby clothes, baby shoes, diapers, formula, a crib, everything that an expectant mother would need, except a baby. 

'She didn't have a baby. For that she needed Angelikque Sutton.'

Wade's defense attorney, Amy Attias, said that her client did not 'intentionally' kill Sutton and that 'something could have gone horribly and terribly and tragically wrong within Ms. Wade's own mind.' 

Police arrived at the crime scene in Wakefield roughly 30 minutes after the November 2015 killing. 

Wade was found by her boyfriend cradling Jenasis next to her mother's body.

She also screamed at police 'It's my baby!' as they took her into custody.

NYPD office Jonathan Polanco Ortiz who had arrived to the crime scene in 2015 testified on Monday that it 'left a mark on his soul.' 

Ortiz said that Wade confessed to the grisly murder when she saw police.

When asked how many times she knifed Sutton, Ortiz said Wade responded, 'As many times as I could.'

During the opening day of the trial, Sutton's father testified that he and his wife had first heard about the viscous attack on the news, but did not know it was their daughter. 

'We saw on television that there had been a young lady who was attacked,and we were saying how terrible it was — not knowing that was our daughter,' Bishop William Sutton told the jury as his wife, Deborah, cried in the audience.

Sutton's husband-to-be and father of her child, sat and listened to the horrific details in court. 

Bradley, who had been dating Sutton for eight years at the time she was killed, posts photos of his daughter on Facebook showing she is happy and even learning how to box.