Man bailed over pregnant woman's murder
A man arrested in connection with the murder of a seven-and-a-half months pregnant woman on a street in broad daylight has been released without charge pending further inquiries, police said today.
Mother of five Tina Stevenson, 31, was stabbed just a few hundred yards from her home in Hull on Wednesday morning and died soon afterwards.
Her unborn twin baby boys could not be saved despite efforts by hospital staff, police said.
A Hull man in his 20s was arrested on suspicion of murder at a police station in the city on Wednesday. He was released on bail shortly before midnight last night, Humberside Police said this morning.
He is due to answer his bail in two weeks' time, a spokeswoman said.
Yesterday, Detective Superintendent Ray Higgins, who is leading the murder investigation, described the attack on Mrs Stevenson as "a dreadful, shocking and appalling attack on a pregnant female in broad daylight".
Mr Higgins said she died from a single stab wound inflicted by a man on Wellsted Road in Hull, where she had walked from the house where she lived by herself in nearby Gee Street.
He said none of Mrs Stevenson's five children lived with her.
The detective said he was liaising with forces in Fife, Scotland, and in Derbyshire, where members of her family have been traced, but he refused to be more specific about where they lived.
Mr Higgins said officers were struggling to piece together Mrs Stevenson's recent history but said she is understood to have been married in the past.
He told a press conference that efforts were made to treat the twin baby boys after it was clear Mrs Stevenson was dead but it was quickly apparent to doctors there was nothing that could be done.
The detective confirmed that the man arrested at Queens Gardens police station in Hull last night had had a relationship with the victim but could not comment whether this was ongoing.
He also would not comment on who was the father of the twin boys.
Neighbours in the run-down area, in which many of the houses are boarded up, said they did not know Mrs Stevenson and she had only moved in a fortnight before Christmas.
