CHICAGO (Reuters) -- A woman who took a baby from a hospital ward after telling neighbors she was about to give birth was charged with murder after its corpse was found in a laundry hamper, police said Tuesday.

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"Her motive possibly could be that she wanted a baby," Cook County Sheriff Michael Sheahan told a news conference. The woman was not pregnant, he added, and told investigators she suffered two miscarriages previously.Vanecha Cooper, 24, was charged with murder and kidnapping. Sheahan said the two-week-old boy was born prematurely and was under treatment at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, just outside Chicago.

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