28 wks. pregnant -and shot dead

There are few things in this world that are as precious as the hopeful glow exuded by an expectant mother.

And there are few things as horrifying as a pregnant young woman sitting limply in a car, slowly losing her life to a gaping shotgun wound in her back.

But that was the scene at the corner of Griscom and Overington streets in Frankford early yesterday, where police found a fatally wounded 20-year-old Hispanic woman - who was 28 weeks pregnant - sitting in the passenger seat of a beige sedan.

The unidentified woman died at Temple University Hospital at 1:45 a.m., but doctors were able to save the life of her still-developing baby girl.

The premature baby was listed in critical but stable condition at Temple, police said last night.

The woman's murder was just one part of the puzzling case that left investigators frustrated throughout the day.

An unidentified man, who apparently was with the woman when she was shot, turned up at Frankford Hospital-Frankford with bullet wounds to the left arm, right shoulder and chest, police said.

He was transferred to Temple in stable condition, although it was not clear if detectives were able to interview him.

The fire marshal's office removed two Molotov cocktails from the shooting scene, outside a red-brick duplex that the pregnant woman and her male companion had apparently visited before the shooting. It's not clear how the explosives ended up at the scene.

"The situation is a little murky," Homicide Capt. Michael Costello said last night.

Costello said the woman "wasn't caught in any crossfire," but stopped short of calling her a targeted victim.

"We're still really sorting through everything," he said. "It's a complicated situation, but we know that a shotgun was probably used."

The mood in Frankford was slightly more frantic earlier in the day, as cops combed the streets and alleys for clues, and neighbors reluctantly discussed the killing.

One man who declined to be named said he heard the sound of car doors slamming followed by five or six gunshots. "Shotgun blasts - not anything small-caliber," he said.

As investigators passed two kids' bikes and a dog's water bowl on their way in and out of the house that the pregnant woman visited, other neighbors chimed in.

"I just heard this girl screaming and screaming, screaming something fierce," said a Griscom Street resident.

Neighbors said police towed two cars from the scene - one in which the victimized couple had been sitting and another owned by the residents of the red-brick duplex whom the victims had visited.

The woman who lived in the house ran to the scene and tried to rouse the pregnant woman by shaking her and shouting, "Get up! Get up!" witnesses said.

When police and paramedics arrived, the grieving woman grew even more overwrought and "went berserk," neighbors said.

A woman who identified herself as "Dawn" and who hid her tears behind sunglasses, approached the scene and said she regularly carpooled with the victim to a customer-service job in Southampton, Bucks County.

She'd just dropped her off Wednesday night and planned to carpool again yesterday when she heard about the homicide on the news.

"Oh, my God, I'm just shocked! I can't believe this!" said Dawn, who said the victim had been looking forward to the birth of her second child.

"She was just such a nice person."

The Overington House, a nearby transitional house for women and children, had several surveillance cameras trained on Overington Street - including one aimed at the driveway where the shooting occurred - but the cameras aren't operational.

Marie DeLany, Overington House's executive director, said the cameras won't be able to record or use video until next week, when the center is scheduled to undergo a $16,000 security upgrade.

The upgrade will come too late for the expectant mom and for the shell-shocked residents of Overington Street.

Neighbors complained that the area - just a block off Frankford Avenue near the Arrott Street el stop - has grown increasingly violent in recent years.

Just in recent days, a domestic argument ended in homicide five blocks away, a man was slain in a Kmart parking lot 1 1/2 miles away and a member of the Pagan motorcycle gang was shot just six blocks away.

"The new police commissioner is stepping up patrols in high-crime areas, but they don't consider us a high-crime area," one woman said.

"Now tell me, how is that?" *