Pregnant Woman Strangled To Take Her Baby
Macabre. It is the only word that can be used to describe the event that surrounded the death of 22 year old woman that went missing last March and her body found in a Joaquina en Getzemaní de San Rafael de Heredia almost a month later.

Cintya Berrios Alvarado, from San Carlos, went missing on March 23 and it wasn't until April 13 that the woman's body was found. Cintya was nine months pregnant at the time of her disappearance.

An autopsy found that the woman had been strangled at the baby was removed from her belly, Following a tough investigation, the Organismo de Investigación Judicial (OIJ) de Heredia, raided homes in Alajuelita, Heredia adn Despamparados, where four people were taken into custody for the chilling and gruesome act.

The four detained by police are cousins of the dead woman.

Police had their suspicions which led to the finding of the body when the group had been seen coming and going from a farm in the area where the body was later found. The visits, according to police, were to ensure that the body was decomposing so that the cause of death could not be established which the group then had planned to report it to police.

What police are still puzzled with if the life of the baby, if it is alive or dead. The raids on the houses yesterday was in part to locate or at least find evidence of the baby's fate.

Police theorize that the motive was jealousy and family problems.