Woman Who Faked Pregnancy Faces Charges

Virginia's Elizabeth Jones led couple to believe they could adopt her nonexistent baby
By Richard Kemeny,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 14, 2019 2:00 PM CDT
Woman Who Faked Pregnancy Faces Charges
   (Getty/kulikovaN)

A Virginia woman who admitted faking a pregnancy and lying to a couple hoping to adopt her baby now faces criminal charges, reports WCYB. Scott County prosecutors filed felony larceny charges against Elizabeth Jones, who has acknowledged that she tricked Laura and Matt Trayte from Lake Forest, California, into thinking she was carrying a baby for them, reports the Washington Post. Throughout the whole process, the California couple kept in constant contact with Jones, even traveling to Virginia for a professional “We’re Adopting” photo shoot. “We’ve been keeping a little secret…” reads the caption of a November Facebook post, but really it was Jones who had one. She has admitted the trickery and expressed regret. "If I could take it back ... I absolutely would," she told the local TV station.

Jones wasn't charged directly with the deception over the fake pregnancy (she has said no money changed hands on the would-be adoption) but with nine counts of larceny for gifts that she was showered with by the California couple. On the day of the supposed birth, the Trayte family was in the waiting room, having flown to a hospital in Kingsport, Tennessee. Jones sent messages, supposedly from the ER, explaining that she had gone into labor on the side of the road and had the baby painfully and without medication in an ambulance she flagged down. “There’s so much blood,” reads one message seen by the Post. “Omg. . . . I don’t think any of us expected this to happen like this.” Eventually, Jones was found fully clothed in a hospital bed, after checking herself in for back pain. (More fraud stories.)

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