Boyfriend 'kidnaps and killed girlfriend's baby boy because child was interfering with his relationship'
- Ummad Rushdi, 30, has been charged with kidnapping and false imprisonment, accused of stealing his girlfriend's 7-month-old baby
- Police say they think Rushdi killed the child, but no body has been found
- Rushdi and Hamza's mother have known each other for three weeks
- Child went missing Sunday but mother didn't report him missing until Tuesday night
|
Jealous: Police says Ummad Rushdi, 30, was angry because his new girlfriend paid too much attention to her baby
A Pennsylvania man has been arrested and accused of stealing his girlfriend 7-month-old boy from his crib and killing him because he was 'interfering' with the boyfriend's relationship with the mother.
Police say Ummad Rushdi, 30, killed little Hamza Ali at Rushdi's parents' house in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, on Sunday. He then took the baby's body to a rural road, where he buried it.
Authorities believe Rushdi harmed Hamza because he believed the child was standing in the way of Rushdi's one-month relationship with the baby's mother Zainib Gaal.
Miss Gaal told officers she had known Rushdi for three weeks.
Despite extensive searches outside York and Columbia, Pennsylvania, police have not found the body of little Hamza.
However, they fear the worst.
'We don't know where Hamza Ali is,' Upper Darby police superintendent Michael Chitwood told the Philadelphia Inquirer.
'We hope Hamza is alive. We don't believe Hamza is alive.'
Rushdi was arrested early Wednesday and charged with kidnapping, unlawful restraint, false imprisonment, interference with custody of a child and endangering the welfare of a child.
When police apprehended him at his home in York, they found with him with knife, a pair of handcuffs and $800.
Tragic: Police believe Hamza Ali, aged just
seven months, was killed by his mother's boyfriend. However, the baby's
body has not been found
Miss Gaal told officers she demanded to know where her son was when she awoke Sunday and found him missing.
However, she did not report Hamza missing until Tuesday because Rushdi's brother told her Rushdi had taken the infant boy to visit her parents in Maine.
For three days she waited for word on her child.
On Tuesday night, Rushdi's brother called said told her, 'Something very bad had happened to the baby,' Chitwood told the Delaware County Daily Times reports.
It was then that she phoned police.
Police believe that Rushdi had beaten the infant just days before. Miss Gaal said she wanted to take Hamza to the hospital to have his shoulder examine, but Rusdhi and his family convinced her to treat the child at home instead.