Rapist Stabs Woman; Her Fetus Dies : Crime: The sexual attack in Long Beach was the second in as many nights in the same block of the same street.

A 23-year-old pregnant woman was stabbed and raped on a Long Beach street early Thursday morning and her fetus died, according to police.

Police did not know where the unidentified woman was coming from or going to. But while walking down the 600 block of Walnut Avenue, east of downtown Long Beach shortly before 1 a.m., she was attacked and raped, according to Lt. Ken Schack.

The woman was rushed to St. Mary Medical Center with two stab wounds to the lower abdomen, said Schack. “As a result of the injuries,” he said, “her approximately 6-month-old fetus died.”

No arrests have been made in the case.

The attack was the second in as many nights to occur along the same block of Walnut Avenue. Both happened between midnight and 1 a.m. Both victims were 23-year-old black women, apparently walking alone down a dark street.

“Right now, we’re treating these as separate crimes,” said Long Beach Police Lt. Steve McAndrew. “We don’t have enough information to link those together.”

But the residents of a small apartment building along Walnut Avenue said they had been awakened two nights in a row by a woman’s screams. And they were not so sure the attacks were unconnected--or that the attacker would not return.

“He did it twice,” said Janet Kirkwood, who shares an apartment with her daughters and several nieces and nephews. “What’s to keep him from coming back and doing it again?”

Police were called to the scene by Kirkwood and her neighbors. The attack occurred behind their building, they said, next to a tenant’s back steps.

“Something told me not to go to sleep,” said a neighbor named Tommie who was straightening up her living room furniture at the time.

“I heard a scream. She said, ‘Don’t hurt me, please, I’m pregnant,’ ” recalled Tommie, who did not want to divulge her full name. “It scared me so much I didn’t know what to do. The only thing I could do was come down here and yell at him.”

Tommie went out to the walkway that led to the back of the building. She yelled into the darkness and a few moments later saw a figure jump over the back fence. “I was scared he was going to stab me too,” she said.

Tommie said the rape of the young woman reminded her of an attack she suffered years ago. “It happened to me when I was 16, so I know what she’s going through,” she said. “But I wasn’t pregnant. And I didn’t lose a baby.”

Because the fetus died while its mother was undergoing surgery, police said they are treating the case as a homicide.

“We’re handling it as a homicide pending the autopsy when we can determine if the fetus was stabbed during the crime,” said McAndrew.

Back on Walnut Avenue, several women swept the sidewalk in front of their apartment building, wondering what they would do to keep themselves and their children safe.

“My baby couldn’t even sleep last night,” said Kirkwood about her 11-year-old daughter. “And I’m scared too.

“We haven’t been here six months,” she said, her eyes scanning the street. “We used to (live) where all the gangs were. I thought it would be safe down here. It ain’t even like that.”

Most of the building’s residents are women, raising their children alone. “Everybody has girls and we don’t want anything to happen to them,” said Tommie, who lives with her daughter and five grandchildren. “We’ll have to watch each other’s children from now on.”

In the meantime, she and her family are looking for a new place to live.

But while her daughter was looking up apartment listings, Tommie said she was thinking of the woman who lost her baby--how she had suffered through a horrible experience, but had survived.

“She’s lucky,” said Tommie. “And I’m praying for her.”