Michelle Bica was an American homicide, an unbalanced woman who murdered a neighbour in order to take her baby and declare it as her own. Michelle had reportedly had a miscarriage several years earlier and desperately wanted a baby.

Theresa Andrews was expecting her first child which was due in two weeks time. She was also selling a Jeep and received a phone call from a woman inquiring about the vehicle.

Michelle Bica, who lived only 4 blocks away, had been stalking Theresa for months. When Theresa’s pregnancy began to show, Michelle began to gain weight and pretended to be pregnant, even convincing her husband. Both women were setting up a nursery in their homes and having baby showers.

The Jeep sale gave Michelle her chance. She coerced Theresa into going to her house. Once there, Michelle shot Theresa in the back and then proceeded to perform a crude Cesarean section on her. She buried Theresa in her garage and told her husband that she had delivered the 8 lb.6oz. baby boy herself.

Within the week, police traced a phone call to Theresa about the Jeep to Michele’s number. They went to the Bica home and heard a shot. Michelle had locked herself in the bathroom and shot herself in the mouth.

What would be the astrology of such a situation ?

There are a number of questions that come from a situation like this. Does the chart of the murderer show the deed ? Do their transits for the time of the murder reflect this ? What about the chart of the victim ? How about their transits ? Is there a tragic synastry between the two ?

Capricorn Research has 545 charts of Murderers and 533 of Victims.

Murder is such a horrific singular event that we would expect it to be visible in a chart. There are many articles on this site that show quite clearly the astrological pointers in murder cases ” Murderers and other Criminals “

Of course there are many different types of murder. In most cases it would be true to say that the person committing it has lost touch with his or her reason, but the astrological motivation for someone like Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper would be quite different from someone who in desperation kills their own children whilst committing suicide themselves or even in this case of Michelle Bica.

Some cases are very straightforward. Thomas Hamilton, the man who killed all those children at Dunblane, had a chart any self respecting astrologer would pick out of an identification parade. The Sun in Taurus in the 11th opposite the Moon in Scorpio in the 5th T square to an apex Pluto would cover it comfortably.

In the case of Sutcliffe, the police took 6 years to convict him, despite the fact that he had been interviewed nine times. They should definitely have used astrology, because one look at his chart should have been enough with the stellium of the Moon, Saturn, Mars and Pluto in his 8th house.

In Bica’s case the Ohio police picked her up within a week, although it was not exactly a difficult case to solve. It might have taken longer if they were just going by her chart.

Michelle Bica

There are some tricky aspects here, but nothing that on its own points to the desperation Bica must have felt to murder Theresa Andrews and take her baby as her own.

But if you take all of the aspects together it does slowly build a picture of the situation.

The Sun is in Aquarius but its only aspect is an exact opposition to Uranus. So we are looking at a strongly self willed individual who is prone to sudden and disruptive behaviour.

Mercury is in Pisces opposite Pluto an aspect that does have the suggestion of a stalker about it.

But there are also a couple of square aspects which on their own would not be considered part of a murderer’s toolkit but do give the background.

Bica has Mars and the Ascendant in Cancer, perhaps this indicates her desperation to be a mother. Both of these are square to Venus in Aries, maybe this points to someone who is prepared to take very assertive action to have children.

Her Moon is in Aquarius in the 8th house square to Neptune in the 5th. Now this aspect does suggest the loss of a child through miscarriage. It could also point to killing someone in order to take their baby but only if taken considered alongside all of the other features.

Capricorn Research is devoted to the power of the Pluto transit, but is also keen to explore those of Saturn, Uranus and Neptune as well. It is often the case that when someone has difficult aspects between these and their major personal planets, the events indicated in the chart will occur when the relationship is reinforced by transit.

The murder of Theresa Andrews occurred on September 27th 2000. Pluto was at 10 degrees Sagittarius, making its only transit of Bica’s lifetime to Mercury by square. Neptune was at 3 degrees Aquarius doing exactly the same to the Moon by conjunction. Uranus was at 17 Aquarius, moving quickly towards a conjunction with the Sun.

So all these natal aspects were closing fast. Not only that Jupiter was at 11 Gemini so with the transiting Pluto creating a Grand Cross to the natal Mercury / Pluto opposition. Mars was at 7 Virgo adding its weight too.

So in a way you could say that Michelle Bica was not the typical astrological profile of a murderer, but there were a number of factors that conspired together to make her kill Theresa Andrews, not least the transits that were operating at the time.

But if that was difficult to analyse astrologically, it is generally much harder, however to categorise the victims. Being a murderer defines the person to a large degree whereas being a victim does not necessarily.

A victim in most cases is a person, pursuing their own life and expressing their own chart potential, but they just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and all of a sudden, they are no more.

If you look hard enough you can usually see the astrological clues but it is not straightforward. Also the relationship to the chart of the murderer is often quite tenuous. A lot depends on whether they have a previous relationship or not.

In the McCra Family Murders, where a 15 year old, Gerald McCra Jr shot and killed both his parents and younger sister, the synastry between murderer and victims was chillingly tight. But of course in this case they had a long previous relationship that would in the eyes of the murderer have caused him to commit the horrific deeds.

In many cases where no previous connection exists between killer and victim, the synastry is fairly loose and unremarkable.

The other point is that transits to the victim’s chart often fail to reveal their fate. There is a strong sense amongst astrologers that it is impossible or at least very inadvisable to try and use astrology to predict death, either for oneself or others.

In a sense this is right because the birth chart is about that person’s life and any transits that might indicate the end of something are really about transformation, the death of one aspect of the person’s life in order for something new to follow on.

Something that Capricorn Research has noticed on many occasions that major aspects of Pluto to the Sun or Moon can occur within a few years of death but not very often at the actual time. It may well be that these transits point to important internal transformations that may be related to the individual’s understanding that they have very little time left on this planet, but this would have to be worked through individually with clients.

Certainly any attempts to research patterns that come up in people’s charts at the actual time of death, have so far drawn a blank.

The kind of thing that we might expect in the chart of victims might be the personal planets in fairly innocent sign positions but extremely badly aspected, particularly by oppositions.

The tragic victim of this case, Theresa Andrews does not obviously have this kind of chart because the Sun, Moon and Ascendant are relatively free of malign contacts.

Theresa Andrews

Andrews Sun is in Aries with no major planetary aspects. Her Moon is in Pisces, conjunct Mars, but this is fairly innocuous. Her Ascendant is in Cancer unafflicted.

There is however a very close square between her Sun and Ascendant, so there is some kind of Aries / Cancer stress point.

The Moon / Mars in Pisces is square to Neptune in the 5th house of children. So the loss of a child could be indicated.

Mercury and Venus, however are under a lot of strain. Mercury is opposite Uranus and this focuses by T Square onto an apex Saturn in the 1st house. People with an apex Saturn generally have more than their fair share of suffering.

But perhaps the one aspect that really points to her being a victim of such a horrible crime is her Venus retrograde in Aries opposite Pluto. This opposition is very closely conjunct the Midheaven /Nadir axis, and as a result has significantly more power.

And its through this aspect that the only real tangible synastry with Michelle Bica’s chart occurs. Bica’s Venus is 10 degrees 49 Aries, Andrews’ is at 10.59 and its retrograde so moving even closer to her killer’s planet.

So the planet in Andrews’ chart that most threatens trouble through its central opposition to Pluto is exactly thrust onto the Aries / Cancer theme of Bica’s Venus / Ascendant square aspect. This is why Andrews becomes the focus for Bica. The rest is down to Michelle Bica’s transits.

It is all there if you know where to look and hindsight is always helpful. In this case Capricorn Research probably wouldn’t have been able to finger Michelle Bica from the chart, but there are lots of cases where astrology could help solve cases, so I’m still available for hire.