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A Brooklyn man on trial for the murder of his unborn baby reportedly researched violent ways to purposely cause the miscarriage of his pregnant girlfriend, the New York Daily News reports.

The tragic incident happened in 2014 when Mia Jones, 33, said ex-boyfriend Torey Branch beat her up while she was seven months pregnant with a baby girl. Jones claims Branch and another man intentionally caused her to miscarry when they allegedly attacked her after she arrived home from a doctor’s appointment.

Jones was hospitalized with bruises and fractured eye sockets. The remains of the child had to be removed through a cesarean section. During the trial last week, detectives read Internet searches from Branch’s phone. Two months before, Branch’s search history proved that he researched the attack.

Via the New York Post:

“What happens if you get hit in the stomach while pregnant?” phone records show Torey Branch first typed into his BlackBerry on Jan. 19, 2014, two months before the March 28 attack on Mia Jones. “What happens if a pregnant woman gets hit in the stomach?” he Googled just days later, according to data recovered after authorities issued a warrant for phone extraction reports.

The two dozen hair-raising texts were read to jurors by cybercrimes Detective Robert DiBattista — who indicated that Branch had deleted them from his search history.

Branch used the same phone — a prepaid BlackBerry registered under a false name — to frequently text Jones, even sending her a message that said “I wanna f—” the morning of the attack.

The defendant’s last search was just two weeks before Jones was brutalized.

“Can being hit in the stomach cause a miscarriage?” he typed.

Branch and alleged accomplice Elijah Green were arrested and charged with forced abortion and burglary causing an injury. Although Jones implicated him, Green was later cleared after it was determined he wasn’t the masked man in surveillance footage of the attack.

The mother of four took the stand to testify against Branch. She admitted the suspect offered her money to pay for an abortion, which she refused to do. She recalled the harrowing day she lost her child.

The New York Daily News reports:

I just wanted to hold her I wanted her to breathe and wake up, she was lifeless so was so innocent and beautiful. I loved her with all my life,” Jones testified in Branch’s Brooklyn Supreme Court criminal trial.

The beating took a horrible physical toll on Jones as well. Both of her eyes were fractured, and she needed two blood transfusions and stitches for the wound to her eye.

“My face was really big and heavy … I was in the most pain of my entire life,” she explained to the jurors as she avoided looking at Branch and photographs of her injuries. 

If convicted of the charges, Branch could face over 20 years in prison.

SOURCE: New York Daily News, New York Post |  VIDEO CREDIT: Inform

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