Add The New York Post on Google A 21-year-old pregnant woman was stabbed to death and had her baby ripped from her womb in a murder that has sent shockwaves throughout Colombia.
María Camila Potosí was last seen riding on the back of a motorcycle in Polvorines — a town in the southwestern city of Cali — on July 16.
Potosí, who was eight months pregnant and weeks away from becoming a mother for the first time, was found dead Monday, four miles away from her home. Cali Metropolitan Police found the body covered in several blankets and with multiple stab wounds.
More than four people may have been involved in the kidnapping and murder, said Gen. Herbert Benavídez, commander of the Cali Police.
The city is offering a $62,000 reward for information leading to the arrests of those involved and the location of the baby, said Mayor Alejandro Eder.
Potosí’s mother, Alba Gomez, has called on the killers to return her granddaughter, Alahia, Colombian news outlet RCN Noticias reported.
“The only thing I ask with this appeal and with the hopeful faith I hold that my baby is alive – is for her to be found,” Gomez said.
“I ask that the people who have her search their hearts and return her to me.”
Potosí was at the home of her boyfriend’s family when she received a phone call from a woman later identified in a video as driving the motorcycle.
The family said that Potosí told them that she was going with the woman to pick up gifts for her baby. She had recently met the woman at a Cali center for expectant moms.
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Potosí’s sister Juliana Meneses told Univision news magazine Primer Impacto that she also had an appointment with her obstetrician that same day.
Her baby daddy “arrived to pick her up at . . . but he didn’t find her and started to get worried,” Meneses said. “We thought maybe she was getting her nails done.”
On Friday, Carlos Rincón posted a video on social media in which he identified himself as the female suspect’s former boyfriend and revealed that she did not return to sleep at his home the day that Potosí disappeared.
He added that his ex-girlfriend told him in January that she was pregnant.
“I was excited about (her) pregnancy,” he said.
“And many people think I had something to do with it — the kidnapping and murder of the 21-year-old woman — because I had been the motorcyclist’s partner.
“We had nothing to do with it. We knew nothing. My family was another victim. We trusted her, we believed in her.”
A police spokesperson told The Post that the investigation is ongoing and declined to provide additional information.
