First came the miscarriage.

Then she started to hear babies crying.

Within days of her 1990 arrest for stabbing a woman and kidnapping an infant, 20-year-old Andrea Curry-Demus was transferred from the Allegheny County Jail Annex to Mayview State Hospital.

A doctor diagnosed her with a personality disorder and major depression stemming from her second miscarriage. The first occurred when she was as young as 12, according to court records.

Nearly two decades after her initial brush with the criminal justice system, Ms. Curry-Demus, now 38, is back in jail, facing accusations of killing a pregnant teenage girl and cutting an infant boy from the woman's womb.

She is the latest former Mayview patient involved in a serious incident since last August, when state officials announced that the hospital would close by the end of this year.

On Friday, police found the body of 18-year-old Kia Johnson in Ms. Curry-Demus' Wilkinsburg apartment. The girl's stomach was sliced open. Duct tape bound her hands and feet. Plastic material covered her head.

The same day, the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare launched a new "sentinel event" investigation, which tries to determine how state and local care systems for mental health patients may have broken down and what changes, if any, are necessary. It's at least the 13th investigation of this type since the Mayview closure announcement, according to Joan Erney, deputy secretary for the state Office of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services.

"We engage with the county and the state to look at the facts," she said. Because of privacy laws, she couldn't confirm that the new investigation was targeting Ms. Curry-Demus.

In October 2006 -- eight years after Ms. Curry-Demus was released from a state prison -- Allegheny County's Office of Behavioral Health created an updated "service plan" that required her to cooperate with mental health treatment at UPMC's Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic.

She also agreed to live at her mother's apartment in Wilkinsburg, take all medication prescribed by her psychiatrist and meet regularly with her probation officer.

Angela Carsia, Ms. Curry-Demus' attorney, yesterday said she couldn't comment on whether her client had been seeing a doctor or taking medication.

She said Ms. Curry-Demus plans to plead not guilty to all charges: homicide, unlawful restraint, kidnapping and endangering the welfare of a child.

A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Friday at 10 a.m.

Ms. Curry-Demus has been seen by the behavior clinic at the county jail, Ms. Carsia said.

Court documents from Ms. Curry-Demus' first incarceration show that a broken family, serious mental health problems and a dangerous desire for a child have plagued her life -- and the lives of others.

She was raised by her mother, Sharon Curry, a nurse's aide. Her father, Harry Kershaw, was almost never a presence, and Ms. Curry-Demus described her mother as "both a mother and a father." Yet the elder Curry kept a distance from her daughter, especially at key moments, such as her first arrest.

"Sharon Curry is either unwilling or unable to comprehend the seriousness of the charges against [her daughter]," said a pre-sentence report prepared in 1991. "She also appears to take the attitude that whatever happens to her children when she is not home or in their physical presence is none of her concern."

At 12 or 13, Ms. Curry-Demus had her first miscarriage, about four months into her pregnancy.

She graduated from Peabody High School in 1989, even though Mayview doctors later said she had a "borderline intelligence level." She worked briefly at several fast-food restaurants.

Ms. Curry-Demus' second miscarriage came in 1990. She bled for several hours, but she never sought medical attention. Sharon Curry said her daughter seemed tired, but physically healthy.

Mentally, however, Ms. Curry-Demus was falling apart. Major depression struck, and she started "hearing babies cry," the pre-sentence report said.

Soon, Ms. Curry-Demus was spending an unusual amount of time at local hospitals.

In May of that year, she met Barbara Brown of Wilkinsburg at Magee-Womens Hospital, several days after Ms. Brown had given birth. The pair had a pleasant conversation about the new baby, and they exchanged telephone numbers.

Ms. Curry-Demus visited Ms. Brown at her home on May 5 to see the baby and chat with her new friend. She stayed late into the evening and asked if she could spend the night.

Ms. Brown, instead, called a cab for Ms. Curry-Demus. When Ms. Brown was looking for the cab through a window, Ms. Curry-Demus stabbed her.

Ms. Brown called for her husband, who quickly came downstairs. Ms. Curry-Demus ran from the house.

The next day, she was at Children's Hospital, where nurses thought she was a relative of a baby because she had been seen there recently.

She then kidnapped 3-week-old Shaquala Coleman, who was being treated for meningitis.

Using telephone records from the hospital, police were able to track Ms. Curry-Demus to her mother's house in Garfield, where they found her with the baby, unharmed.

Ms. Curry-Demus was taken to the county jail, and she soon started to express fears that people were watching her. And she experienced repeated "auditory hallucinations."

She was sent to Mayview, where doctors tried to get her to take Prozac to treat her depression. She refused the drug.

Ms. Curry-Demus was taken back to the hospital the following year, before she started a seven-year stint at State Correctional Institution Muncy in Lycoming County.

At the time, she was still thinking frequently about "her baby," but the sounds of crying infants had faded.

Ms. Curry-Demus was released from jail in 1998, and she was supposed to face probation until 2011. County officials updated her service plan in 2006, shortly after her second arrest on shoplifting charges.

As of last week's arrest, Ms. Curry-Demus was listed as a sex offender on the state police Megan's Law Web site because of her conviction in the Children's Hospital kidnapping.