KENNEWICK, Wash. -- Police here report that a pregnant woman was stabbed multiple times in the chest and her nearly full-term baby was cut from her womb. A second woman has been arrested.

The baby has been hospitalized in critical condition.

Court documents say 27-year-old Araceli Camacho Gomez of Pasco had her hands and feet bound with yarn and suffered "massive trauma to her stomach area." An autopsy showed she died of the chest wounds. Her body was found early Saturday in a Kennewick park.

A 23-year-old Kennewick woman, Phiengchai Sisouvanh Synhavong, has been arrested for investigation of first-degree murder and is accused of trying to pass the infant boy off as her own in calls made late Friday night to emergency dispatchers. She is being held without bail.

Kennewick Police Chief Ken Hohenberg said Monday the baby was on life support at Deaconess Medical Center in Spokane.

According to the document of probable cause, Synhavong told dispatchers she had given birth but feared her baby had died. The woman claimed she was near JC Penney, but dispatch data indicated the call had been made from Columbia Park Trail.

Police found the suspect sitting in her car with a baby. When officers took the baby, Synhavong repeatedly asked, "Is my baby OK?" the document said.

Officers said the woman was wearing only a T-shirt without any pants or undergarments, and was holding a part of an umbilical cord in her hand. A "significant amount of blood and pieces of human tissue" were found in the back seat, the document said.

Synhavong and the baby were taken to Kennewick General Hospital, where medical tests showed she had not recently given birth.

In an interview with KEPR-TV, Synhavong's family members said the suspect had recently been claiming she was pregnant. Then on Friday in the hospital, she claimed the baby police had found her with was hers.

Synhavong eventually confessed to the crime at the hospital, family members said.

Upon searching the suspect's purse, police found a pair of mechanic's gloves soaked in blood, as well as a mucus bulb, a boxcutter, yarn, a baby bottle and baby socks.

The victim's son said he remembers seeing a woman matching Synhavong's description offer his mom baby clothes, then ask for her address and phone number.

Family members said Synhavong worked with senior citizens and had met and befrriended Gomez through her work.

They also said Synhavong had spoken to her spiritual leader shortly before the alleged murder. She was acting strangely in such a way that made them suspect she may be possessed, they said.

Synhavong is said to be married with a baby, but family members don't know where her husband is at this time.