Pregnant woman shot dead by boyfriend, baby survives: cops

A Raleigh man shot and killed his pregnant girlfriend, who was able to call 911 with her dying breaths, likely saving the life of her unborn, 6-month-old baby, police said.

Kimberly Dianne Richardson, 25, was able to muster the strength to alert police and medical personnel to the darkened lot behind a mall where she’d been left for dead by 25-year-old boyfriend Daniel Joseph Steele, authorities said.

“Help,” the mortally wounded woman gasps into the phone. “I’ve been shot.”

“I can’t … I can’t talk,” she whispers into the phone during the disturbing call obtained by WNCN-TV. “I’m at Party City behind the Triangle Town Center Mall.”

“He shot me,” she says as the silences become more pronounced and sirens can be heard approaching the Raleigh, N.C., parking lot.

Richardson later died at WakeMed Hospital, while the child was delivered but left in critical condition. Cops tracked Steele to his home just miles away from the murder scene.

He’s held at the Wake County jail without bond and is due in court Monday.

“She was a real sweetheart,” Maria Babar, a friend of the doomed couple, told WNCN. “She was a good soul. She had good intentions. She would never do anything bad to anybody. I would never expect for him to do something like that to her because they were having a kid and it’s just mind-blowing and it’s definitely out of the blue.”

Richardson held down two jobs, both at the mall behind which she was found dead,according to WTVD-TV. Steele was once a security guard at the mall but resigned in October, according to WRAL-TV.

Friends created a GiveForward page, which had raised nearly $5,000 for funeral costs and to help care for the premature baby, named Lacy.

Richardson posted several photos to Facebook showing off her growing baby bump, last posting a photo on March 25 with the caption, “26 weeks eeek!!!”

“She was really, really happy (about being pregnant),” Paige Bragdon, a friend from church,told WRAL. “Really, really happy. I sent her a text the day before she went to find out the sex of the baby and told her how happy I was for her and how excited I am.”