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Her daughter ’s tiny body was cold and limp as Michelle Wilkins dressed it tenderly, singing quietly to little ears that would never hear.

The scene sounds like the worst nightmare of any expectant mum – a stillbirth or a baby lost soon after labour.

But this was something else entirely. An experience so brutal , so unthinkable, it is beyond any mum-to-be’s darkest fears.

Last March, Michelle was the victim of foetal abduction.

At seven months ­ pregnant , she was viciously attacked and her unborn baby ripped from her unconscious body with two kitchen knives.

(Image: Courtesy of Michelle Wilkins)

The perpetrator – dubbed a “womb raider” in this rare but horrifying crime – was a woman so obsessed with the idea of having a baby of her own, she had faked a pregnancy and decided stealing an unborn child was the only way to prove her lie.

Dynel Lane lured Michelle, a stranger, to her home, by advertising second-hand maternity clothes online.

Once there, she strangled Michelle and “cut her from hip to hip” before tearing out the foetus.

But although her baby could not ­withstand such brutal violence, Michelle did – and now the 27-year-old is bravely giving her first newspaper interview.

Sixteen months after the gruesome attack last March, she says she is still struggling to comprehend it.

“There’s no answer to the question, why does somebody do this?” she says, quietly.

“This woman was sick. My grief has been excruciating.

"It shouldn’t be anyone’s first moments with their daughter – holding, dressing and singing to a cold body.”

She adds: “When I came round, my whole abdomen was searing with pain.

"I looked down and saw the cut across my stomach – I felt my intestines fall out of my body as I tried to get up.”

Foetal abduction may be rare, but Michelle, from Boulder in Colorado, is one of 16 cases in the US since 2003.

Lane, 35, who has two teenage ­daughters, had tragically lost a son over a decade before.

The nursing assistant had been pretending she was pregnant with a son to her boyfriend for months.

Michelle’s pregnancy – her first – was unplanned. The father was her friend Dan and they weren’t in a relationship . But they embraced the news.

She says: “We picked the name quickly. Aurora means ‘new dawn’.

"She really ­represented that to us. We had a nursery set up, had a baby shower. I had all the clothes she needed for a year.”

The only thing still to get was a crib. It was while searching for one online that she spotted Lane’s advert.

“I texted her and got one back the next day and arranged to go round.”

Lane’s home was a 10-minute drive away.

“She seemed so normal. We went upstairs to the bedroom and she pulled out all the clothes.

“Then we went back down into the living room and chatted for a while.”

After about an hour, when Michelle tried to leave, Lane offered to show her some baby clothes in the basement.

Once they were down there, as Lane started to search around, Michelle decided she didn’t need anything and went to leave. That’s when Lane came at her from behind.

“She grabbed me by the sweater. I was yelling ‘what are you doing?’ She started saying I had attacked her.

"She pushed me into one of the nearby bedrooms. She wrestled me on to the bed, got on top of me and tried to start smothering me with a pillow.”

Then Lane grabbed a lava lamp and smashed it over her victim’s head.

She stabbed the lamp into her neck and tried to throttle her.

(Image: Reuters)

Michelle says: “I remember thinking ‘I have to survive for Aurora.’

"But then everything went black and the next I knew, I woke up on the floor.

“I tried to stand but I couldn’t feel my legs, so I fell forwards. Then I became aware I could feel my insides through my pants – I could feel the blood seeping out.

"When I felt my intestines through my stomach, I hoped that was Aurora, that it wasn’t my gut.”

Despite having lost 50% of her blood, Michelle managed to call the police.

The gruesome scene they found shocked even the most hardened officers .

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In hospital , her heart stopped and she needed resuscitation – she very nearly lost her life.

The next morning she woke with Dan by her side.

She is unable to find the words to describe the moment he told her what had happened.

“I couldn’t even cry because I had a breathing tube in my throat and a feeding tube down my nose,” she recalls.

Two days later, a coroner brought Aurora’s body to Michelle.

Holding, dressing her and singing to her, was the hardest moment of Michelle’s life.

“We saw in her features the perfect blend of both our families,” she says.

“Those were the only moments with my daughter, so I treasure them. But it was so very sad.”

She was in hospital for five days. Her abdomen needed stitching and her uterus re-building.

It emerged Lane had lied to police she had attacked Michelle in ­self-defence – and then ripped out her unborn child with the intention of taking her to hospital, because she feared the baby would not live.

In truth, delusional Lane had claimed she was pregnant with a baby boy, convincing her boyfriend it was his by showing him fake ultrasound pictures and gaining weight.

But when her due date kept shifting, he insisted on meeting her for a prenatal appointment – the day of the attack.

When he came to pick her up, she told him she had given birth to their child at home.

(Image: Reuters)

He found the body in the bathtub and took them to the hospital.

In May, Lane was found guilty of seven offences, including attempted murder, and was sentenced to 100 years.

Amazingly Michelle says she doesn’t hate her and has even tried to feel compassion.

She suffers flashbacks but says with support she is beginning to build her life again.

Thankfully, she is able to have more children, but says, softly: “It’s not where I am right now. I’m so deep in the process of losing Aurora.”

However, it is the memory of her daughter that brings her most comfort.

“I feel her spirit is at peace,” she says.