Colombian Woman Killed for Her Unborn Baby, Five Arrested After Infant Found Dead

María Camila Potosí, 21, disappeared on July 16 after leaving a prenatal checkup in Cali, Colombia. She was eight months pregnant. Four days later, her body turned up wrapped in blankets on the banks of the Meléndez River, stabbed multiple times, her baby cut from her womb.

Colombian authorities have now arrested five people in connection with her death, according to The New York Post. Court documents reviewed by the Post allege a woman named Yulieth Angulo orchestrated the entire plot, paying roughly 4 million Colombian pesos, about $1,265, to four members of a local street gang to kidnap and kill Potosí so she could steal the baby.

Angulo allegedly spent months building a friendship with Potosí through a city-run program for expectant mothers, at one point pretending to be pregnant herself, the Post reported. On July 16, she reportedly accompanied Potosí to her prenatal appointment, then convinced her to ride off on a motorcycle to pick up baby supplies. Surveillance video captured the two leaving together. It was the last confirmed sighting of Potosí alive.

Prosecutors allege Angulo brought Potosí to a house in the Alto de Polvorines neighborhood, where the gang members were waiting. One suspect, identified as Nitzon Mondragón, allegedly stabbed Potosí to death. Investigators believe the group then removed the baby from her womb, cleaned the scene to destroy evidence, and had another suspect, Juan José Narváez, drive the body nearly five miles to the La Buitrera neighborhood to dump it near the river, according to the Post.

Angulo was the first suspect arrested after her own family reportedly recognized her in the motorcycle surveillance footage and turned her in, according to El Colombiano and RCN Noticias as cited by the Post. Cali Metropolitan Police commander Gen. Herbert Benavídez said all five suspects were arrested Thursday across Cali and Tuluá.

For days after Potosí's body was found on July 20, there was genuine hope the baby, already named Alahia by her family, might still be alive. Potosí's mother, Alba Gomez, made a public appeal for her granddaughter's return. "The first thing I asked was whether the baby was still in her womb, and they told me no, that the baby wasn't there," she told the Colombian outlet La FM, according to the Mirror. "That filled me with hope that the baby might still be alive."

Cali Mayor Alejandro Eder had offered a reward of 200 million Colombian pesos, about $63,000, for information leading to arrests, writing on X that authorities would keep working "to uncover the truth and advance in each of the lines of investigation, including the clarification of the facts related to the health status of her baby," according to Live Action.

That hope ended when one of the arrested suspects led investigators to the baby's remains in a wooded area. Ariel Emilio Cortés, director of Colombia's Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences, confirmed through DNA testing that the remains belonged to Potosí's daughter, according to the Post's reporting on Infobae.

Live Action's earlier coverage, filed while the baby was still missing, noted that a man identified as Carlos Rincón, described as the female suspect's former boyfriend, said she had lied to him twice before about being pregnant, including once claiming she had lost a baby. That detail lines up with the Post's later reporting that Angulo had faked her own pregnancy to get close to Potosí.

Early reporting from the Mirror and the Express, published while the case was still unfolding, focused on the disappearance and the desperate search, understandably framing the story around the mother's plea and the CCTV footage of the motorcycle. Neither outlet had the benefit of the later arrests or the confirmation that the baby had died. The full scope of the alleged conspiracy—that it was an organized, paid hit involving five people rather than a single abductor—only became clear once the Post's court-document reporting caught up with the case.

What remains unresolved is the exact timeline of when the baby died relative to Potosí's murder, and what specific charges each of the five suspects will face. Colombian prosecutors have not yet detailed formal charges or a trial date in the material reviewed. The case has drawn national attention in Colombia, with Mayor Eder's office continuing to describe the investigation as active across "all institutional capacities."