Police Say Woman Faked Pregnancy, Killed Friend For Baby

KEOKUK, Iowa - Kimmi Lynn Hardy's own husband apparently believed she was pregnant. Neighbors, though, thought she looked a bit too skinny.

The neighbors were right.

Hardy, 36, was charged with murder yesterday, accused of luring an acquaintance, Theresa Lynn Lund, to her home, shooting her to death and showing off Lund's 6-week-old son as her own. She even gave a baby shower for herself.

"I knew she was supposed to be pregnant," said Tammie Korschgen, a mother of four who lives across the street. "But I saw her out in the yard - this was in July - in shorts and a halter top, and she didn't look pregnant to me."

Hardy, who has an 18-year-old daughter and two sons, 15 and 12, from a previous marriage, was jailed on $2 million bail.

After the baby shower, an anonymous caller told police about a newborn who was too big for his age. Police found the child at the Hardy home on Sept. 18. Hardy said she had bought the baby from someone out of state for $3,000, but footprint records showed the boy was Paul Lund, born July 16.

According to court papers, Hardy's husband of three months, Robert Eugene Hardy, told police that his wife shot Lund, 34, on Aug. 28 in their basement and hid the body in a crawl space.

That's the same day Lund's mother reported her daughter and grandson missing and the same day Kimmi Hardy announced she had given birth to a son.

Robert Hardy said that when he returned from work that day, his wife told him she had delivered a baby in their bathtub. He told authorities he "is not educated and never had kids before," police Capt. R.L. Dobson said.

"That's his story, that he just didn't know," Dobson said.

Last Friday, Robert Hardy led authorities to Lund's body, which was found along railroad tracks near Alexandria, Mo., less than 10 miles from the Hardy home. The gun has also been found, but police wouldn't say where.