Liberia: Did Lucas Richards Forcibly Abort His Liberian Wife’s Pregnancy?

One of the medical doctors who performed the Dilation and Curettage (DnC) to stop Jessica Lloyd's heavy bleeding after her three-month pregnancy was allegedly aborted testified in her husband Lucas Richards’s alleged attempted murder proceedings at Criminal Court ‘B’ in Monrovia.

Defendant Richard, an American missionary of the Creekside Church on assignment in the country is currently being tried for allegedly attempting to murder his Liberian wife Jessica Lloyd, whom he married in a traditional ceremony a few months earlier.

Richards is also accused by Jessica’s mother, identified as Cynthia, of injecting her daughter with an unknown substance in her vein, resulting in the deliberate termination of the pregnancy.

Defendant Richards has repeatedly denied the allegations.

But testifying as the prosecution’s seventh witness, on Thursday, Dr. Deazee Saywon clarified that he performed the DnC to save the victim Jessica’s life due to her profuse bleeding after she was rushed to the JFK Medical Center in September 2023, the same month Richards was arrested by the Liberian National Police and charged with attempted murder.

Witness Saywon, also a Gynecologist, told the court that he was on duty when he received a call about an emergency patient who was suffering from vaginal bleeding.

According to Saywon, when he rushed to the hospital and checked the victim, Jessica complained that she was pregnant and had been bleeding from the virginia for about two weeks, accusing the defendant of prescribing an unknown medicine in the form of tablets to remove the pregnancy. 

“During the examination, I noticed that she has a normal cervix, but blood was around the vagina,” the medical practitioner assigned to the Ministry of Health alleged.

Saywon further testified that he did the urine test and other tests and it came out positive that she was pregnant. 

“We made a diagnosis, and she was counseled and returned to the trauma unit stable,” he added.

Another medical practitioner, Nancy Borbor, assigned to the ELWA Hospital who testified as the prosecution’s fifth witness, also confirmed the pregnancy of Jessica Lloyd.

Nancy Borbor, who is a nurse, testified that Jessica Lloyd in August 2023, came in contact with the victim when she went to the hospital to ask for pregnancy treatment.

She claimed that she requested Jessica to the OB ward, which she did and the result was positive.

According to the prosecution’s witness; Jessica regularly visited the hospital for a medical checkup.

“I gave her the pregnancy prescription and often she would take some home,” the government witness testified.

Jessica’s pregnancy medical records were made available to the court.

Also, testifying as the prosecution’s sixth witness, Dr. Charlie N. Kimpie, assigned to the JFK Medical Center, told the court that he was on duty on September 14, 2023, when Jessica was rushed there.

Witness Kimpie said he observed that she came with pain in the head and the neck, but her pulse rate was elevated trama.

The witness emphasized that on exposure, Lloyd had a laceration on the head and another one on the neck.

“On exposure to the wound of Miss Lloyd, all the veins on the neck were spare,” Kimpie noted.  

He said they considered it as a case of deep laceration repair on the neck and also sutured and put the patient on pain medication and antibodies.

On the following day, the patient’s (Jessica Lloyd’s) head was stable. And after six days of observation, she was discharged stable. The doctor displayed a photocopy of the medical report from JFK Medical Center.