MINNEAPOLIS_Savanna LaFontaine-Greywind, who was eight months pregnant when she disappeared from her Fargo, N.D., apartment earlier this month, died from homicidal violence, authorities said Tuesday.
The 22-year-old disappeared Aug. 19 from the apartment she shared with her parents after going upstairs to model a dress for her neighbor. Her body was found in the Red River on Sunday after an eight-day search.
The couple who lived upstairs, William Hoehn, 32, and Brooke Crews, 38, were charged Monday with conspiring to kidnap and murder LaFontaine-Greywind and steal her baby, who remains in protective custody, to claim as their own.
Fargo Police announced Tuesday the preliminary cause of death, but the full autopsy report from the Ramsey County medical examiners office isn't expected for weeks while Minnesota and North Dakota investigators continue to work the case.
LaFontaine-Greywind's death has shocked the Fargo-Moorhead area, especially American Indians, as well as total strangers from across the country. Messages have poured in on social media with offers to donate money, baby clothes or other items. From St. Paul to Grand Forks, people are gathering in prayer to honor LaFontaine-Greywind, while other vigils _ from Winnipeg to her hometown of Belcourt, N.D. _ are taking place across the region.
"It's hard for me to believe that she went through such a brutal ordeal," said Tarita Silk of Spearfish, S.D., LaFontaine-Greywind's aunt. "We need to have some closure. We want to know what happened."
Silk described LaFontaine-Greywind as a gentle spirit and a true "girly-girl" who enjoyed getting dolled up with makeup and listening to music.
LaFontaine-Greywind, a member of the Spirit Lake Dakota tribe, worked as a certified nursing assistant at a West Fargo senior center, according to social media. She was excitedly anticipating the birth of her baby girl, Haisley Jo, whose due date was Sept. 20, posting pregnancy updates like a sonogram image.
"Getting so close," she wrote online on Aug. 13 with a heart emoji.
It was six days later that Hoehn returned home to his apartment to find Crews, his girlfriend of three years, cleaning up blood in their bathroom, according to documents filed Monday in Cass County District Court. He told investigators she showed him a newborn baby girl.
"This is our baby, this is our family," she told him, according to the court documents.
Crews gave police a different account of how she got the newborn, according to the criminal complaint.
She told investigators that she called LaFontaine-Greywind to her apartment Aug. 19 and instructed her on how to self-induce birth by breaking her own water. Crews said that LaFontaine-Greywind left, and returned two days later to give Crews the child, the documents state.
Police arrested Crews and Hoehn last Thursday after serving a search warrant. Hoehn admitted to police that he removed garbage bags containing bloody towels and his own bloody shoes from the apartment and disposed of them.
Although officers had visually searched the apartment three times, it wasn't until their fourth _ a complete forensic search with a search warrant _ that they found the newborn.
The baby girl, at Sanford Children's Hospital in Fargo under the custody of Cass County Social Services, is believed to be LaFontaine-Greywind's, but authorities are doing DNA tests to be sure.
Police haven't said whether LaFontaine-Greywind's body showed evidence of a Caesarean section or of labor having been induced. It's also unclear where she died.
After an eight-day search by hundreds of volunteers, LaFontaine-Greywind's body was found by kayakers paddling the Red River. It was wrapped in plastic bags and duct tape and snagged on a log in the middle of the river.
On the Minnesota side of the Red, just south of the spot where the body was discovered, volunteer searchers found suspicious items at an abandoned farm. The Clay County Sheriff's Office and investigators from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension are processing the unoccupied farm, which Hoehn and Crews didn't own, as a suspected crime scene.
Fargo police said they aren't seeking any other suspects in connection with LaFontaine-Greywind's disappearance and death.
In addition to conspiracy to commit murder, which carries a possible sentence of life in prison without parole, Crews and Hoehn also were charged Monday with conspiracy to commit kidnapping, a felony, and providing false information, a misdemeanor. A judge set bail for both at $2 million cash.
The couple have been living together for about three years, according to court records of a domestic violence case against Hoehn last year. In that case, Hoehn was charged with pushing Crews into a bathtub during an argument. The incident took place in the same apartment where the couple lived when LaFontaine-Greywind disappeared.
Hoehn was convicted of misdemeanor domestic assault in that case and sentenced to 30 days in jail, court records show. In 2012, Hoehn was convicted in Grand Forks, N.D., of felony child abuse. He received a sentence of one year in jail and served 130 days. In that case, Hoehn was found responsible for multiple skull fractures that his infant son sustained while in Hoehn's care, according to court records.
Ashton Matheny, the father of LaFontaine-Greywind's baby, told Fargo TV station WDAY that "my world's gone," adding that the couple of six years had planned to move in together on Sept. 1 before their daughter was born.
