Hoehn Crews

FARGO, N.D. (AP) — A man accused in the killing of a pregnant North Dakota woman has pleaded guilty to two of three charges against him.William Hoehn pleaded guilty Tuesday to charges of kidnapping and providing false information to law enforcement in the August 2017 death of Savanna LaFontaine-Greywind of Fargo. Hoehn is still scheduled for trial on Sept. 18 on a charge of conspiracy to commit murder.

Hoehn’s former girlfriend, Brooke Crews, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder and two other charges in December and in February was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Authorities say she cut the baby from the mother’s womb. The baby was found healthy.

Cass County State’s Attorney Birch Burdick declined to comment on the guilty pleas. Hoehn’s public defender, Daniel Borgen, did not immediately return a phone message.

His conspiracy to commit murder trial is scheduled to start Tuesday, Sept. 18, in Cass County District Court.

Hoehn’s former girlfriend, Brooke Crews, pleaded guilty late last year and is now serving a life sentence for the murder of LaFontaine-Greywind, who was 22 and eight months pregnant when Crews, a neighbor in her building, cut open her womb and took her baby.

Hoehn’s guilty pleas come about three weeks after he took part in a jailhouse interview with The Forum, the first time he’d agreed to an interview since being jailed last August, shortly after the crime.

In the interview, he confirmed what court documents said he told police. In Hoehn’s version of events, he came home from work to his north Fargo apartment on Saturday, Aug. 19, 2017, to find Crews cleaning blood from their bathroom.

Crews presented him with a baby and said, “This is our baby, this is our family,” Hoehn told police, according to court records. He told police he took bloody shoes and bloody towels from the apartment and disposed of them in a West Fargo dumpster.

LaFontaine-Greywind’s body was found eight days later in the Red River. The baby was found healthy in Crew’s possession.

Hoehn told The Forum he was convinced Crews was pregnant and “was under the impression we were having a baby,” adding that he never heard Crews talk about taking a baby from another mother.

He said he never heard Crews talk about LaFontaine-Greywind, and said he knew “she had anger issues” but didn’t think she was “crazy to the point of doing something like this.”