One surgical team managed to save the pregnant mother, who had been shot twice in the abdomen as she slept in her apartment with her 8-year-old daughter early on the morning of March 25 in Lovejoy, Georgia.
But a second surgical team was unable to save 27-year-old Princess Wolfe’s unborn baby girl. The child had already been named Cori. Her maternal great-aunt, Stephanie McGruder, was later allowed to view her.
“You want to see the little toes, little hands, you know? I wanted to salvage any precious moments I could.”
— Stephanie McGruder
McGruder saw that the nurses had treated the murdered child as they would a newborn. They had taken footprints and swaddled her and placed a tiny multi-colored knit cap on her head.
“I asked if they would unwrap her so that I could see all of her,” McGruder recalled. “You want to see the little toes, little hands, you know? I wanted to salvage any precious moments I could.”
The nurses complied and McGruder saw that Cori had been dressed in a white satin gown that they must have somehow had on hand.
“It was beautiful,” McGruder recalled. “It was something really delicate and precious.”
McGruder then gazed under the exquisite gown to see a hideous wound. The first surgical team had been the one to brief the family and had said that the baby had been intact. The team must have been so focused on saving the mother that they failed to see that at least one of the bullets hit the child while she was in the womb. McGruder now understood why there was a smudge of blood on the document where the footprints were recorded.
After the Clayton County medical examiner conducted an autopsy and determined that the baby had been viable, the Lovejoy Police Department pursued what Chief Michael Gaddis told The Daily Beast was a murder case. Gaddis said the multiple bullet holes in Princess’ bedroom window led them to conclude she was not struck by stray rounds; she had been targeted.
On Wednesday, March 30, Princess made a video from Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta. The pregnancy had been very difficult and she had been on bed rest for the the last five months and had done everything possible not to lose her baby only to have it end five days before she was due.
“All I want is justice for my unborn child,” she said in the video. “And I’m just asking anybody, if anybody know anything, if anybody seen anything, please contact Lovejoy police.”
Her family had set to making arrangements for a funeral that will be held when Princess recovers. McGruder said the preparations were the same as for anyone.
“Nothing different,” McGruder said. “The funeral home has taken possession of her remains and they’re embalming her.”
And they are choosing a coffin.
“It’s just smaller,” McGruder said.
There was no need to purchase a final outfit.
“We had just had a wonderful baby shower at the beginning of March,” McGruder said. “And so the baby had enough clothes to last her for the next two to three years.”
McGruder reported that the death had been particularly hard on the 8-year-old, Paris, who had been in bed with her mother, dreaming of unicorns when she suddenly awoke to gunfire.
“Her mom pushed her to the floor and told her to stay down because someone was shooting,” McGruder said. “[Princess] in turn rolled off on the bed to get away from the window because the bullets were coming through the window. And when she got down on the floor, she realized she was bleeding.”
Princess whispered to her daughter.
“She said, ‘Get the phone. I need medical help. We need to dial 911,’” McGruder told The Daily Beast.
McGruder rushed to the scene and arrived just as an ambulance was taking Princess away. McGruder asked to go in the apartment and the police consented, warning her not to touch anything.
“When I open the door, I see my baby niece, the 8-year-old, Paris, sitting quietly on the couch, staring,” McGruder recalled. “And when she saw that I was there, we ran to each other. I grabbed her, I hugged her. I picked her up. I told her, I was glad she was safe. I kissed her. We cried. And then I took her to a bedroom so we could pack her clothing. I knew I needed to get her out of there.”
“The good news was her mother was going to be okay. The bad news was that she’d lost her baby sister. ”
— McGruder
The family waited three days to tell her what had happened to the baby. They convened a family meeting that included Paris’ maternal and paternal grandparents. Her teacher attended virtually.
“We knew that she knew her mom had been shot twice,” McGruder said. “The good news was her mother was going to be okay. The bad news was that she’d lost her baby sister. It frightened her and she began to weep for hours, you know, and they tried consoling and bringing her level of peace. But we do know that because of her mental state, she will need some professional care to help process all of this.”
McGruder concluded, “She was broken.”
McGruder said the loss may some day be softened by the arrival of another sibling. The leader of the first surgical team told the family at the hospital that he had managed to reconstruct Princess’s bullet-torn uterus.
“He is suggesting she may be able to conceive in the future,” McGruder said.
At the funeral, Paris will bid farewell to the baby sister whose scheduled delivery had been just a few days away on the night she dreamt of unicorns in a nation of guns.
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