Police in Wisconsin have arrested a 38-year-old woman for the ambush beating of a pregnant woman outside her job earlier this month.
Marielle Barrios has been charged with armed robbery with use of force, substantial battery, and attempted aggravated battery to an unborn child, WISN reports.
A doorbell camera captured the attack on Gheonna Lacy, as CrimeOnline previously reported. Lacy had just finished her overnight shift at a group home where she worked and gone out to warm up her car at about 7 a.m. on January 15. The camera showed two hooded people, one of them carrying a baseball bat, run across the yard after her followed by the sound of screaming and the blows from the bat.
Lacy said that the assailants “just immediately knocked me to the ground, started swinging the bat (and) stomping me with their feet.”
She said she recognized the woman — Barrios — as someone who had been stalking her over some kind of relationship dispute.
A criminal complaint against Barrios goes further, WISN said. The complaint says that the father of Lacy’s baby is Barrios’s boyfriend and that she heard Barrios say, “Beat the baby out” and “kill the baby” while the beating was taking place.
Barrios went through Lacy’s pockets and took two cell phones, one of which belonged to her boss, during the attack, the complaint says.
Lacy said she recognized Barrios because a face mask she was wearing fell down during the attack, WDJT reported.
Prosecutors said that police officers saw a visible bruise on Lacy’s stomach “consistent with a shoe impression.”
The day after the beating, Barrios dropped off a statement at the police department calling Lacy’s statement false. She was arrested on January 23, and another woman, Melvina Lewis, was also arrested on a single count of harboring a fugitive.
Both Barrios and Lewis were arrested by Arkansas State Police and returned to Wisconsin, jail records show.
Racine police are still looking for the second attacker. Lacy said she believes it was a man because of body shape. The second attacker said nothing during the attack.
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[Featured image: WISN screenshot. Inset: Marielle Barrios/Hempstead County Sheriff’s Office]