Background: The Montgomery County Jail in Conroe, Texas (Google Maps). Inset: Jon Rueben Gabriel Demeter (Montgomery County Sheriff's Office).
A 25-year-old Texas man secretly gave an abortion drug to his unborn child's mother despite her wanting to keep the baby, causing the child to be stillborn, authorities say.
Jon Rueben Gabriel Demeter has been charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon causing serious bodily injury, the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office announced, classifying the charge as a case of family violence and noting that additional or enhanced charges are possible.
On Saturday, deputies with the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office responded to a hospital in The Woodlands — a census-designated place just north of Houston — "regarding a patient experiencing a miscarriage under suspicious circumstances." The woman told deputies that "she believed the father of her baby had surreptitiously administered a drug to her, without her knowledge or consent, to terminate her pregnancy."
The child, given the name Presley Mae by her mother, was stillborn at the hospital. The sheriff's office launched an investigation, and deputies closed in on Demeter as their suspect.
The sheriff's office said its investigators learned that Demeter "previously attempted to convince the mother to undergo an abortion on multiple occasions, even offering to pay for her to travel out of state." But she "repeatedly refused, expressing her firm intent to carry the pregnancy to term."
"Further investigation revealed that Demeter obtained abortion medication and covertly administered the medication to the mother without her knowledge and consent with the specific intent to cause the death of the unborn child," the law enforcement agency added.
Houston-based ABC outlet KTRK identified the drug as Mifepristone, a "drug that blocks a hormone called progesterone that is needed for a pregnancy to continue," according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Abortion, including through Mifepristone, is illegal except for limited exceptions in Texas.
Demeter turned himself in to Hamilton County deputies on Monday, his mother told the local TV station. She added that there is another side to the story of the terminated pregnancy, though she would not go into detail.
The defendant's mother also said that her son has two other children — a 3-year-old and a 15-month-old. It is unclear if they have the same mother as the woman who reported the alleged crime.
Demeter was booked into the Hamilton County Jail and was scheduled to have a bail hearing on Wednesday.
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