Woman Pleads Guilty After Prosecutors Say She Murdered Pregnant Neighbor and Stole Her Baby

One of the two suspects charged in the slaying of an expectant mother in North Dakota earlier this year has pleaded guilty, PEOPLE confirms.

Brooke Crews, 38, of Fargo, North Dakota, appeared in court Monday morning with her attorney, Steve Mottinger, to confess to her crimes in the death of 22-year-old Savanna LaFontaine-Greywind.

Crews, shackled and soft-spoken, pleaded guilty to three charges: conspiracy to commit kidnapping, conspiracy to commit murder and giving false information to the police.

She faces up to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Her sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 16.

Crews’ attorney tells PEOPLE she decided to plead guilty after reviewing the evidence against her during discovery. “She made the decision to take responsibility,” he says.

LaFontaine-Greywind was eight months pregnant when she vanished on Aug. 19 from her family’s Fargo apartment. Her plastic-wrapped body was found in the local Red River more than a week later, on Aug. 27.

Authorities said that she died of “homicidal violence.” Prosecutors provided a brief summary of the case at Monday’s hearing but gave no further details about how or where LaFontaine-Greywind died or under what circumstances her child was born.

Savanna LaFontaine-Greywind
Savanna LaFontaine-Greywind

Prosecutors said Crews was responsible for the “murder and stealing the unborn baby” of LaFontaine-Greywind, who they alleged was killed by violence inflicted by her and her co-defendant.

LaFontaine-Greywind disappeared after visiting Crews’ third-floor apartment, located in the same building where she lived with her parents and younger brother, according to police. Crews had asked her to model a dress she was sewing.

• Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter.

While authorities searched for LaFontaine-Greywind in the days after she went missing, Crews was arrested in her apartment after neighbors reported a baby crying in the building.

Police said they found Crews with a newborn girl. DNA tests showed that the baby was, in fact, LaFontaine-Greywind’s daughter.

The child was returned to her father’s custody earlier this year.

From left: William Hoehn and Brooke Crews
From left: William Hoehn and Brooke Crews

Prosecutors said Monday that Crews had planned to “register” LaFontaine-Greywind’s daughter and “raise the child as her own.”

Crews’ live-in boyfriend, 32-year-old William Hoehn, was arrested soon after she was on Aug. 24. As with Crews, he faces charges of conspiracy to commit murder and conspiracy to commit kidnapping as well as providing false information to police.

He has pleaded not guilty and is still awaiting trial. His attorney has requested it begin in March.

Hoehn’s attorney could not immediately be reached for comment.