Fall From 4th Floor Window Kills Pregnant Woman, Fetus : Crime: Before dying she tells officers she was pushed. Police arrest resident of the building near downtown.

A pregnant woman and her 6-month-old fetus were killed in a fall from a fourth-floor window Sunday morning, officials reported. Before dying, the woman told police she had been pushed.

Officers responding to a call for help in the 700 block of South Union Avenue, just west of downtown Los Angeles, arrived around 6:30 a.m. to find the woman, naked, lying on the ground between two apartment buildings.

“She said she had been pushed out of the fourth-floor window,” said Sgt. Mike Rangel of the LAPD’s Rampart Division.

The 41-year-old woman, whose name was not released, was rushed to County-USC Medical Center, where her male fetus was stillborn, Rangel said. Doctors performed emergency surgery on the mother, Rangel said, but she died shortly after noon.

Police arrested Steve Drake, 34, who lived in the apartment from which the woman reportedly was pushed and charged him with murder, said Rampart Sgt. Rick Wall. “The motive for the crime appears to be over sexual advances by the suspect toward the victim,” he said.

Another tenant of the building, Dian Calloway, identified herself as the victim’s stepmother. She said the woman lived alone in a single-room apartment on the fourth floor of the building.

Some residents of the building across the litter-strewn alley where the woman fell said that during the night they heard loud arguing, and at one point a woman screaming. “We didn’t pay attention because it happens all the time over there,” Francisco Patino said.

Others said they heard cries for help shortly after 6 a.m. “I heard this strong thud,” said Lorena Salazar, who looked outside and saw the woman on the ground.