Scraping For A Lead And Coming Up Empty

Looks like Stephen Kinzer in The Times was reaching a little too hard to find a fresh lead for the story on the woman who was strangled and then had her fetus cut out of her. Such are the hazards of working a story over the phone instead of being in the field.

By last night, two days after a pregnant woman was killed in Missouri and her fetus cut out and taken, the local mortuary still had not heard from her relatives.
They were probably concentrating on the surviving baby girl, suggested Marian George, an employee of the Price Funeral Home in Maryville, Mo.

You think?

The Kansas City Star was among those that had a better idea.

By DAVID KLEPPER and LEE HILL KAVANAUGH

MELVERN, Kan. — Dressed in pink and nestled in a baby carrier, the infant was paraded around town Friday, just as any newborn might be.
Kevin and Lisa Montgomery dropped by the Whistle Stop Cafe on Main Street to give patrons a look, then there was a visit to the home of the Rev. Mike Wheatly, pastor of the First Church of God.
“I held her in my arms for 15 minutes,” Wheatly recalled Saturday.
“Lisa talked about the delivery, about how her water broke,” he said. “Kevin had his proud papa face on.”

Full story:

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/10450097.htm