TAMPA, Fla., May 16 (UPI) -- A Florida man facing a murder charge admitted he tricked his pregnant girlfriend into taking an abortion pill so she would lose the fetus, prosecutors say.
John Andrew Welden, 28, of Tampa is charged with murder under a rarely used federal statute, as well as tampering with a prescription, McClatchy-Tribune Regional News reported Thursday.
Assistant U.S. Attorney W. Stephen Muldrow told U.S. Magistrate Anthony Porcelli during a hearing Wednesday the case was "one of the most shocking and premeditated cases I've seen."
Muldrow said Welden's girlfriend informed him in March she was pregnant. Welden wanted the woman to get an abortion, but she told him she planned to raise the child without support from him.
Welden had her see his father, Stephen Welden, a practicing OB/GYN doctor, who informed her the unborn child was viable and healthy, Muldrow said.
The younger Welden forged his father's signature to a prescription for Misoprostol, an abortion drug sold under the brand name Cytotec. He then put a label on the bottle that falsely indicated the drug was an antibiotic, telling his girlfriend his father had diagnosed her with a bacterial infection.
The woman took the pill before going to work the next day. She began experiencing abdominal cramps and bleeding and was taken to the hospital, where she miscarried.
Hillsborough County Sheriff's deputies said Welden confessed to giving the woman the abortion pill and tampering with the bottle.
