The Miracle Murder

details of the account remain covered until revealed Her birth mother, Christine Grace Warmbrot, said she gave birth at a home for unwed mothers and cared for the baby for eleven days before her own father forced her to give the child up. Another version the episode gives is that the grandfather, a door-to-door pots-and-pans salesman, handed the baby to a family called the Ricker. She was raised in Portland by Sandra Ricker, a bookkeeper who baked elaborate wedding cakes at home, and her husband, a forklift driver on the night shift who was active in the Lutheran church. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it She also said she had been sexually abused by a neighbour child at six and began a sexual relationship with a young cousin at about seven.

She attended La Salle school, a Catholic school where she was one of the few non-Catholics, and paid part of her tuition by working nights in fast food and at a local store. this part of the story is covered for now They dated on and off, moved in together in early 1985 and in May 1985 took a duplex on the south-east side of Portland. She left her parents' house before finishing school, and her parents did not attend her graduation.

She worked in the sports department at GI Joe's, a variety store. Eight to ten months after the move she was pregnant; she took maternity leave and then miscarried. details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it

this part of the story is covered for now They married in January 1987. Ray enlisted in the Air Force on 15 January 1987 in Portland, did twelve weeks of training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, and was assigned to Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where the couple settled.

The pregnancy was a fiction. She had told co-workers her due date was in May; when May came she told them she had had a stillbirth and asked her husband to back the story up, which he refused to do. After the move the due date shifted to 16 July. By mid-July she had been wearing maternity clothes for fourteen months. On about 15 July 1987 the couple visited Montano Acura in Albuquerque, where the sales manager, Rob Moore, remembered her resting her hands on her belly and saying she was a week or two from delivery.

On the morning of Thursday 23 July 1987, Cindy Lynn Ray, twenty-three and eight and a half months pregnant, drove her cherry-red Chevrolet Blazer to the Kirtland Air Force Base ambulatory care clinic for her last prenatal appointment. Her husband, Sam Ray, an Air Force police officer, had cycled to work so that she could keep the car; she planned to run Tupperware orders afterwards. The appointment went well, though she was tired, short of iron and had a fetal monitor held on by a pink belt. She was told to come back at 5 p.m. to go to the University of New Mexico Hospital to have labour induced. She left the clinic between 2.30 and 3.30 p.m., wearing a white top and blue maternity trousers.

details of the account remain covered until revealed She had told her own doctor she was due that day and had an induction booked for 5 p.m. She was not pregnant. Witnesses saw a woman walking back and forth near the clinic door in the heat. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it

A stockroom supervisor named Therin Heartshorn, driving to a house he was building, found the Beetle stopped in the road with both doors open. this part of the story is covered for now He closed a door, drove past and glimpsed a second woman lying on her back. details of the account remain covered until revealed

She then dragged Cindy into the junipers, took the key to Cindy's Blazer and used it to cut a five-and-a-half-inch incision in her abdomen. She pulled out the baby, chewed through the umbilical cord, named the child Amanda Michelle and left Cindy to bleed to death.

the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it Rob Moore knelt by her car, cleared the baby's mouth and helped her; the girl was bluish and waxy but pinked up. this part of the story is covered for now The birth was logged at 4.45 p.m. At the hospital she refused to be examined, but Ray insisted. Doctors found that she had not given birth. She then claimed she had bought the baby from a surrogate she met at an abortion clinic in Portland for $10,000, then from a midwife in Santa Fe for $2,000, paid from a trust fund she could not explain.

At 1 a.m. on 24 July the chief resident locked the nursery and called the police. details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now Asked where the mother was, she eventually said, "I killed her," then handed the baby away and broke down.

details of the account remain covered until revealed Cindy was found partly covered by her white blouse, strangled and bleeding, with her keys in the tall grass. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it The autopsy found death by strangulation and blood loss. this part of the story is covered for now

details of the account remain covered until revealed Psychiatrists disagreed about whether she had a major mental illness or a personality disorder; one said she was among the most disturbed people she had seen. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now

Sam Ray received a hardship discharge, moved back to Utah with his family, remarried two years later, studied secondary education at Brigham Young University and raised Luke and Amelia. details of the account remain covered until revealed He has said he does not want to be bitter.