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Suspect allegedly wrestled knife out of pregnant woman’s hands before killing her

Posted at 5:39 PM, Jan 18, 2017
and last updated 2017-01-18 17:39:36-05

Christopher Howard, courtesy Muskegon County.

MUSKEGON COUNTY, Mich. — A man accused of stabbing a pregnant woman to death in 2015 was in court Wednesday.

Christopher Howard, 19, is charged with open murder for the death of Dominique LaShay Oneal in June 2015. She was about six months pregnant.

In court, Muskegon Township police say they collected finger prints from the apartment where Oneal’s body was found. At the time they ran the prints, they got no matches. That changed nearly a year and a half later, when on Dec 18, 2016, a person was arrested whose fingerprints seemed to match the ones from the apartment.

Dominique Oneal. Courtesy photo.

That person – Christopher Howard – was arrested Jan 3, 2017 as he was leaving for court. During an interview, police say Howard admitted to breaking into Oneal’s apartment and was surprised by her. Howard says Oneal initially brought out a knife and that she didn’t recognize him. Howard allegedly said that he took the knife out of her hands and used it to stab her several times before running out the front door.

Oneal was 21 and a mother of two when she died. She was also in the army and had become a certified nursing assistant before her death.