WASHINGTON — An Aspen Hill man charged with stabbing a pregnant teen told police that he wanted the young woman and her baby to die because he was not ready to be a father.
Dakota Brothers, 18, was ordered held in lieu of $5 million bail during a hearing on Thursday afternoon. Brothers was arrested on Wednesday on charges of attempted first-degree murder and first-degree assault.
The 19-year-old victim remained in critical condition at a hospital on Thursday. She was stabbed multiple times in the upper body and neck area, according to court documents.
During surgery, doctors performed an emergency Caesarean section to save her baby. The baby girl, born about three months premature, was taken to the neonatal intensive care unit, police wrote.
“Her fate is uncertain at this time,” police said in the documents.
According to charging documents, Brothers told police that the victim is not his girlfriend and that the two are not dating. He said that he had told the woman he did not want to be a father and wasn’t ready to have a child.
Brothers told police that he led the victim along a wooded path off Upton Street in Kensington where they had, what he described as, consensual sex Wednesday afternoon. He then strangled her until she fell unconscious and stabbed her several times with a kitchen knife he brought with him, according to court documents.
He then fled because he thought he saw several gang members and feared they would assault him, court documents said.
Brothers told police multiple times that he wasn’t ready to be a father. Also, he said he had considered killing the woman, according to court records.
The 19-year-old identified Brothers to police as her attacker and said that he is the father of her baby.
Brothers was arrested in Wheaton less than an hour after the attack.
WTOP’s Rick Massimo contributed to this report.
