By AMY HAMILTON/The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
A former Grand Junction man who wanted his then-girlfriend to abort their child was arrested on suspicion of slipping the woman pills that caused her lose to their child, according to the Grand Junction Police Department.
Jared Merril Ahlstrom, 31, now lives in Utah but appeared Tuesday in Mesa County District Court free on a $7,500 bond. He was advised of a single felony charge of unlawful termination of a pregnancy.
Ahlstrom, who lived in Grand Junction with his girlfriend for about a year and a half, ending in September 2008, turned himself in to Utah authorities on the Grand Junction warrant.
According to an arrest affidavit, Ahlstrom wanted his girlfriend to have an abortion after he impregnated her. About a year after his ex-girlfriend lost the baby, he admitted to her that he had drugged her twice to kill the baby. Ahlstrom told the woman he had purchased Misoprostol in Mexico and laced her food with the drug before they went hiking.
After the woman became pregnant, Ahlstrom moved out of their home. The woman said the pregnancy was not planned, but she wanted to keep her baby, the affidavit said.
At about nine and a half weeks into her pregnancy, the couple started to hang out again and went hiking at Rattlesnake Canyon. While hiking, the woman said she felt a lot of pain and was bleeding, and because she worked in the medical field, she believed she had a miscarriage, the affidavit said. A few days later she learned she did not miscarry and her baby was healthy, the affidavit said.
In early January 2009, the woman told Ahlstrom she was still pregnant, and he again told her to have an abortion, but she told him she would not, the affidavit said.
Soon after that, the two met up to go hiking again, this time on Grand Mesa, when she began to have pelvic pain and some bleeding, the affidavit said. About 90 minutes later she went to her doctor, who had her deliver the baby. The baby was stillborn at 16 weeks, but her doctor said he didn’t know why the woman miscarried and that it was “very unusual,” the affidavit said. The woman said she wanted an autopsy done to determine why the baby died, but Ahlstrom protested, saying he wanted their baby cremated, but he did not want the ashes, the affidavit said. The woman had the baby cremated.
The woman told police that Ahlstrom repeatedly called her in September 2009 until she blocked his phone number from her phone. Ahlstrom called the woman crying in November and tried to meet with her. The two met at Whitman Park, and they drove around for a while, before she dropped him off at Colorado West Mental Health after he claimed to be suicidal, the affidavit said.
The woman told police Ahlstrom called her from the treatment facility and said he drugged her, giving her misoprostol, before hiking on both occasions. The woman said she knew misoprostol was used for medical abortions, the affidavit said.
In late November 2009, the woman forwarded e-mails to an investigator with the Police Department in which Ahlstrom admitted to obtaining the drug and putting it in the woman’s food on two separate occasions, the affidavit said.