Tarrant County inmate charged with murder in death of hospital staffer’s unborn fetus
An inmate at the Tarrant County Jail is being charged with murder after she was accused of assaulting a pregnant staff member at JPS Hospital, causing the death of the fetus, according to a news release from the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office.
Cheri Akil, 39, is facing a murder charge and is being held in a secure area of John Peter Smith Hospital, according to the release.
Authorities allege that Akil punched the pregnant staff member in the stomach as she was standing next to Akil’s hospital bed on Wednesday. The staff member was taken to the JPS trauma unit, where doctors using an ultrasound discovered that the fetus no longer had a heartbeat, according to the sheriff’s office.
In Texas, an assault or homicide of a pregnant woman resulting in the death of a fetus is classified as murder. According to Texas law, if someone intentionally or knowingly causes the death of a living person younger than 10 years old they have committed capital murder. That includes “an unborn child at every stage of gestation from fertilization until birth.”
In 2022, a man in Odessa was convicted of capital murder and automatically sentenced to life in prison for killing his unborn child while abusing his wife. The fetus was 5 weeks old.
Akil was previously being held by the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office on charges of credit or debit card abuse, driving while intoxicated and a game room violation, according to jail records.
This story was originally published April 17, 2023 at 5:06 PM.