Andrea Curry-Demus suffered at least three miscarriages and was desperate for a baby. During the past two decades, she stabbed a woman in a failed attempt to steal her infant and kidnapped a baby girl from a Pittsburgh hospital, court records show. This week she told police she bought a baby boy from a woman she barely knew. But police Friday recovered the body of a woman, found face down with her hands bound with duct tape, inside the Wilkinsburg apartment where Curry-Demus, 38, lived. The baby, who was unharmed, will be released to the custody of the Allegheny County Department of Children, Youth and Families. Outside Curry-Demus' third-floor apartment Friday, a foul, pungent odor filled the hallway and flies swarmed behind the screen of an open front window. The odor wafted to the street below. A neighbor, Taylor Hall, 19, who lives in the apartment beneath Curry-Demus, said he didn't think to call anyone about the odor. "This is the ghetto. Something always smells around here," he said. A dispatcher told a reporter who called 911, suspecting a body inside, that police would check the apartment. For several hours, however, no officer responded to the call. Wilkinsburg police Chief Ophelia Coleman said at a news conference that police had already checked the building. "We searched the apartment, and it didn't look like anyone had been there for a few days," Coleman said. "Nothing was out of place, and there was nothing to lead us to believe anything violent happened there, or that a birth happened there." After officers recovered the body, Coleman said they had not searched Curry-Demus' apartment the night before, but had visited that building. Throwing a baby shower Curry-Demus brought the newborn to West Penn Hospital in Bloomfield Wednesday night and told doctors she'd just given birth. The baby's umbilical cord was still attached, but medical tests proved she wasn't the baby's mother. She then told detectives she paid a woman named "Tina" $1,000 for the baby, but she couldn't tell investigators anything else about the woman. Curry-Demus told police she miscarried in June and "did not want her mother to get upset," so she began looking for a pregnant woman from whom she could buy a baby, according to court documents. Last month, friends and family of Curry-Demus gathered at her mother's Wilkinsburg home for a baby shower, where remnants of banners and balloons exclaiming "It's a Boy!" remained outside yesterday. "She looked pretty pregnant just a few days ago," Hall said. "This is absolutely crazy." Coleman said Curry-Demus' past sparked concern. "We were concerned right from the start, but when we learned that Ms. Curry has been in trouble for this kind of thing before, we really got worried," Coleman said. A troubled life The tragedies of Curry-Demus' life are played out in court records that paint the picture of a woman so desperate for a child that she became pregnant for the first time at the age of 12. She miscarried that pregnancy at about four months and sank into a depression. Eventually Curry-Demus, who has a limited intelligence level, according to court records, graduated from Peabody High School. She took a series of maintenance jobs at fast-food restaurants. In 1990, at age 21, she miscarried a second time, losing the fetus at 7 months, court records state. She suffered "great physical and emotional trauma" as a result, and within months was under arrest for attacking one mother and kidnapping a second woman's 3-week-old baby. In the first incident, Curry-Demus befriended a woman who had just given birth at Magee-Womens Hospital, spending time at the woman's house a day or so later. During the visit, Curry-Demus told the new mother she wanted to stay overnight, and when the woman balked, Curry-Demus attacked her with a knife and tried to steal the infant. The woman's husband intervened, and Curry-Demus ran from the home. The next day, Curry-Demus went to Children's Hospital, where she befriended a 16-year-old mother who had brought her 3-week-old daughter to the hospital to be treated for meningitis. When the young mother went home for the night, Curry-Demus remained. When nurses weren't looking, she snatched the baby and left the hospital. The newborn was found with Curry-Demus at her home, unharmed, the next day. Curry-Demus pled guilty to various charges stemming from both incidents. She was sentenced to 3-10 years in prison in June 1991 and sent to SCI-Muncy. She was paroled Aug. 31, 1998. She was ordered to serve 10 years' probation after her parole. Curry-Demus was examined by psychiatrists at the Allegheny County Jail Behavioral Clinic before she was sentenced. Records show she was diagnosed with severe depression, personality disorders and auditory hallucinations. She told doctors she spent a lot of time thinking about her miscarriages and "kept hearing babies cry."

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