On September 27, 2000, 23-year-old Theresa Andrews, who was 9 months pregnant, disappeared without a trace. Her husband reported her missing to the Ravenna, Ohio, Police Department. The husband, Jon, told police that on Wednesday morning Theresa told him that she received a call at home from a person inquiring about a Jeep the Andrews were selling. He stated that Theresa paged him at work and he told her to be careful showing the Jeep. He also stated that he told her not to take a test drive, just get the person’s I.D. and give him or her the keys. He said that when he called home at noon, no one answered. Jon stated that when he got home from work at about 4:30 p.m., his front door was unlocked and Theresa was missing along with the Jeep that was for sale. Theresa’s purse, cell phone, and other personal items were left behind. Jon first called his relatives and then called the police.
Fig.1 On September 27, 2000, 23-year-old Theresa Andrews, who was 9 months pregnant, disappeared without a trace.
An initial search of the residence did not reveal any signs of a struggle or that Theresa had been forced from the house. Everything seemed to be in place. Theresa’s pocketbook with all of her identification was found in her residence. On the end table was a glass of juice and a pudding cup that was half-eaten, suggesting that Theresa had suddenly departed the residence. At approximately 6:00 p.m., an officer located the Jeep in a county parking lot south-west of and 200 feet behind the Andrews’s house. The keys were missing. Jon and Theresa had cleaned and vacuumed the Jeep the day before to make it more attractive for sale. It was spotless. The Jeep was towed into the station house for crime scene processing. There were not any visible signs of a struggle or violence. However, the keys were missing and someone would have had to drive it to the location where it was found.
Fig.2 Ravenna police on the scene.
On Thursday morning, Detectives had a subpoena sent to Ameritech for a phone trace on the call that was made to Theresa at 9:18 a.m. on Wednesday, September 27. The process of tracing the phone call to the Andrews home was complicated because the call had come from a phone issued by another carrier. The address of origin was not readily available and a security expert was brought in to assist in the trace. The Ravenna Police received a break in the case when it was advised that the phone call was successfully traced to a cell phone. It took telephone security people 5 days to trace that particular call. The subscriber was Thomas Bica, who lived just two blocks from the Andrews residence.
Fig.3 Michelle Bica is shown in this 1994 police handout photo.
Investigators went to the residence and interviewed 39-year-old Michelle Bica, the wife of the subscriber, Thomas. Michelle was visibly nervous and gave detectives the explanation that the cell phone in question had been stolen from her in a Walmart. When asked about a second call made that same day from the same cell phone, she identified the number as that of the family doctor and the call was from another phone. Michelle was asked about her activities on the day that Theresa Andrews had vanished. Michelle told them that she had been to a car dealer in the morning looking at cars and that she had delivered a baby boy that afternoon. She then told the detectives that the cell phone she had used was the cell phone in her car. Michelle then led the detectives to the garage door, which was padlocked, began going through papers, and showed them another cell phone. She then locked the door in the presence of the detectives.
Fig.4 Michelle Bica throwing a fake baby shower.
As the police were interviewing Michelle, her husband, a corrections officer at the county jail, came home. Michelle claimed she had given birth to a baby boy. She told police she had the baby on Wednesday, September 27, the same day that Theresa had disappeared. Michelle, who was quite obese (5 f, 3 in., 200 lb) had convinced her husband over the last 9 months that she was pregnant. She told a bizarre tale of how her water broke and that she had called her doctor, who sent an ambulance to her house. She claimed to have been at an Akron Hospital but, because of an infectious woman there, she was sent to another facility, and then she and the baby were released. Michelle and her husband celebrated the birth of their son, “Mickey,” on Thursday, September 28.
Fig.5 In the garage under the car was a shallow grave where the body of Theresa Andrews had been buried.
Two investigators were detailed to keep the Bica residence under surveillance as other investigators checked on Michelle’s story. They ascertained that she had not been to the Akron hospital or to any other medical facility. The family doctor told police he conducted a well-baby exam for Michelle on September 29 and she told him she had delivered the baby at a hospital in Ravenna. Michelle Bica became the primary suspect in the disappearance of Theresa Andrews.
Fig.6 The knife which the medical examiner later ruled was the knife used to slash open the abdomen of the victim to remove her child from the womb.
Investigators returned to the Bica residence at 9:00 p.m. that Monday evening to confront Michelle. When the detectives arrived at the Bica home, they observed that the house was dark and the lights were off. Suddenly, they heard a gunshot. The upstairs lights came on in various rooms and a male voice could be heard screaming, “Michelle, Michelle.” Thomas Bica called 911 and reported that his wife had just shot herself. The police ordered Thomas to exit the residence. Michelle’s body was located in an upstairs bedroom. She had committed suicide by shooting herself in the mouth with a .22 caliber gun.
Police searched the house and found the 7 lb, 8 oz newborn infant in a second-story nursery. The baby was safe and asleep in its crib and in good health. The child was placed in the custody of the Portage County Family Services. Subsequent DNA tests proved that the child was, in fact, the son of Theresa and Jon Andrews. Jon and his newborn son were reunited after a brief stay at the hospital to ensure that the infant was in good condition and had not received any internal injuries during such a traumatic birth. The police learned from Thomas that Michelle had ordered a large quantity of gravel for their driveway and garage. Thomas told them that he and Michelle had spread the gravel in the driveway and garage 2 days after Theresa had vanished.
Fig.7 The incision and extraction of the fetus had to have been done within 10 minutes before all of the oxygen was drained from the uterine blood supply.
Detectives immediately advised investigators at the suicide scene that Theresa’s body was possibly buried somewhere at the Bica home. A search warrant was obtained. Detectives examined Michelle’s pocketbook. Inside the pocketbook were the keys to the Andrews’ Jeep. Detectives discovered dried blood under the dryer in the laundry room. This was the location where the victim had been shot and had her fetus cut from her womb. Michelle Bica had told her husband that she had given birth in the laundry room. She told him that she had cleaned most of it up and there had been a strong smell of disinfectant. The dried blood under the clothes dryer was matched to Theresa Andrews through DNA analysis.
Fig.8 Jon Andrews holds his son, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2000, before leaving Robinson Memorial Hospital in Ravenna, Ohio.
Investigators searched the driveway and found a trail of blood leading from the house to the garage. Inside the garage was evidence of a recent excavation. In the garage under the car was a shallow grave where the body of Theresa Andrews had been buried. Beneath the gravel, under a piece of plywood, the authorities discovered Theresa’s body. The detectives also recovered a knife in the gravesite, which the medical examiner later ruled was the knife used to slash open the abdomen of the victim to remove her child from the womb.
The medical examiner ruled the cause of death for Theresa Andrews to be a bullet wound from a .22 caliber gun, which had entered the victim’s left upper back penetrating the left lung and heart. A footlong horizontal cut had been made across the victim’s abdomen to facilitate the removal of the fetus. Michelle Bica used this same gun to commit suicide. Michelle Bica had spent months convincing everyone, including her husband, family, and neighbors, that she was pregnant. She gave neighbors updates on her sonograms and set up a baby monitor in the kitchen. She and Thomas toured Akron General Medical Center’s maternity unit and even made plans for the baby’s christening as she stalked Theresa.
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