BUTCHER GUILTY
Gutted pregnant bride to get baby
The twisted woman who cut the baby from her pregnant friend’s belly on the victim’s wedding day was found guilty of murder Thursday by a Bronx jury that needed less than five hours to convict.
Ashleigh Wade, 24, began sobbing hysterically and shaking as she heard the foreperson deliver a verdict that could lead to her being locked up for life.
As she wept, the parents of victim Angelikque Sutton closed their eyes and hugged one another in the gallery.
“Justice prevailed,” mom Deborah Sutton said. “The truth was revealed.
“My daughter was avenged with victory.”
Her father, Bishop William Sutton, added that Angelikque “was a beautiful girl,” before the couple left, smiling and even laughing a little in relief.
The Bronx Supreme Court jury spent the past two weeks listening to brutal accounts of how Wade slit the 22-year-old Sutton’s throat in 2015 — and also stabbed her some 50 times before cutting out her unborn child.
Wade, who had been falsely tell- ing people she was pregnant, then claimed the baby girl was her own.
The baby, who miraculously survived, was named Jenasis by relatives.
“I really feel bad for Jenasis because every time it’s her birthday, it will be bittersweet because she was born on the day her mother died,” juror Maggie Santiago told The Post after the verdict.
“Unfortunately there are winners in this case.”
Santiago, 64, who experienced “horror, horror” as she looked at crime scene photos, said she had no trouble reaching a verdict.
Wade was convicted of sec- no ond-degree murder and kidnapping, which could result in a life sentence.
The 22-month-old child now lives with her father, Sutton’s groom-to-be, Patrick Bradley, who was not in court Thursday.
“The facts of this case are unfathomable: a child was yanked from the womb moments after her mother was murdered on her wedding day,” Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark said.
Defense attorney Amy Attias said of Wade following the verdict, “She is sobbing and she is sorry.”