Michigan Woman Eight Months Pregnant Found Dead In Staged Suicide

A single, expectant mother was found dead in Michigan — and investigators would have to determine if she died from suicide or if someone killed her and her unborn baby boy.

Dawn Webb, the mother of 32-year-old administrative assistant Jenny Webb, recalled her daughter phoned her in tears in 2012 to break the news she was pregnant. Dawn said Jenny wanted to name her unborn son either James or Braxton.

On the evening of Aug. 30 that year, Jenny, over eight months pregnant, went to the home of her friend, who had just welcomed twins. According to the friend, Jenny was planning to raise her own baby alone and was to meet up with the child’s father to talk over some things that night, including whether or not the man had told his wife about her pregnancy. Jenny, her mother said, wanted to put the man’s name on the birth certificate and felt his wife should know beforehand.

According to the friend, Jenny seemed annoyed about meeting her baby’s father but went anyway. It was the last time the friend saw Jenny alive.

Later that evening, two officers with the Buena Vista Township Police Department — Kenneth Bluew and Tim Patterson — found Jenny’s body on a dead-end road in a rural area. An extension cord was tied to the roof rack of a vehicle and extended down a ditch to Jenny’s body, where it was wrapped around her neck.

Police initially believed Jenny had killed herself, and a suicide note, purportedly written by her, seemed to confirm it. The note stated she didn’t know who the father of her baby was and that she had met him at a bar. “I’ve spent the past several months trying to convince myself I was OK with this pregnancy, but I’m not,” the note read.

Dawn, however, dropped a bombshell on investigators: The father of her daughter’s baby was Ken Bluew, one of the two officers at the Buena Vista Township Police Department who had discovered Jenny’s body.

During the subsequent investigation, the other officer on the scene that evening, Patterson, said he found Jenny’s body because Officer Bluew wasn’t answering his radio so he went to look for him. Patterson knew Bleuw would at times go not far from a police shooting range to nap during shifts. There, he located Bleuw, who told him he had just discovered a body.

Investigators recovered messages between Jenny and Bleuw on her phone, and its call log showed the last person she contacted was Officer Bleuw.

Police suspect Jenny’s plan to put Bleuw’s name on their child’s birth certificate may have been the tipping point and the officer’s motive for murder. “She said, ‘My baby will know who his father is,’” Dawn noted about her daughter.

A forensic pathologist later testified that Jenny was possibly put into a chokehold from behind and died from neck compression and not ligature strangulation from the extension cord, WWJ-TV reported.

Michigan State Police investigators noted during an interview that Bluew had noticeable injuries, including a red eye, marks on his forearm and a bandage on his index finger. DNA tests later confirmed the officer was the father of Jenny’s unborn son.

At trial, Bluew, now 48, was convicted of first-degree murder and he was sentenced in November 2012 to life in prison without parole.

He received an additional 65 to 100 years for the death of his and Jenny’s unborn baby boy.

Bluewz’s wife filed for divorce after his arrest.

“Everyone who trusted you have to live with the horror of this,” the victim’s mother, Dawn, said in a statement read at Bluew’s sentencing, WWJ-TV reported. “Why God just didn't strike you dead I really don't know. Go to your cage and think about how you squeezed the life and breath out of my daughter and grandson, and I hope it haunts you every day for the rest of your life.”

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