Husband Charged With Murder After Wife Dies in Childbirth in Maryland

Published: July 30, 2026

HARPER, Maryland County – A Maryland County man has been charged with murder over the death of his wife after childbirth, with police alleging he told relatives by telephone not to take her to hospital while she was in labor and to wait instead for him to get home.

Abraham Collins, 54, was charged with murder and criminal facilitation and sent to Harper City Court, which remanded him at Harper Central Prison pending trial. His wife, Beatrice Morrison, died at J.J. Dossen Memorial Hospital in the Tubman University Community after delivering at home.

The charge rests on a delay. In the sheet filed under case number HP-197-07/26, police allege that Collins, who was away from the house, was reached by phone as Morrison’s labor intensified and her water broke, and that he directed those with her not to move her until he arrived. Police say several witnesses gave consistent accounts that neighbors had urged the family to get her to hospital before that call.

Teta Elliott, a community resident police describe as a principal witness, told investigators she repeatedly advised that Morrison be taken to J.J. Dossen because the labor was progressing, and that Collins insisted on waiting.

Morrison delivered before her husband got home. Police allege that Collins cut the newborn’s umbilical cord himself on arrival and only then contacted a community health promoter, Mariam Fofana.

Police say Collins admitted under questioning that he stopped his wife from being moved before he arrived, and that he cut the cord. On those admissions and the witness accounts, investigators charged him under sections 14.1 and 10.2 of the New Penal Code.

Statements from the family put the labor beginning on the night of July 22. Relatives told investigators they stayed awake as the pains intensified, that a daughter was sent early the next morning to fetch Elliott, and that Morrison at first turned down outside help, saying she had delivered at home before and expected her husband to assist when he got there.

Fofana told investigators she found Morrison unconscious on the floor in a pool of blood with the newborn beside her, and arranged emergency transport. Maryland County Health Officer Dr. Methodius George said Morrison was pronounced dead on arrival at about 2:07 p.m.

Medical staff recorded that the placenta had not been delivered. Retained placenta is a recognized cause of severe bleeding after birth and is treated as an obstetric emergency.

Police have not released a cause of death, and have not said whether a post-mortem examination was carried out or whether one is planned. That gap matters to the case, because the murder charge turns on the claim that the delay caused the death rather than that it was merely present alongside it.

The baby survived and is in the neonatal intensive care unit at J.J. Dossen, where doctors say the child is responding to treatment.

Collins has denied intentionally causing his wife’s death, according to investigators, and told them that he sought help once Morrison lost consciousness. That account of his position comes from the police rather than from Collins, and he has not spoken publicly.

Prosecutors will now have to prove the allegations at trial. Collins is presumed innocent until a court finds otherwise.