SKIDMORE, Mo. -- Authorities looking for an infant cut from the womb of its mother expanded their search outside of Missouri on Friday as they maintained hope the baby might still be alive.

The search for the baby started after a 23-year-old woman who was eight months pregnant was killed Thursday and the fetus was taken from her body, authorities said.

Sheriff's deputies were investigating the afternoon killing of Bobbie Jo Stinnett and they were searching for the baby, who they believe could have survived.

"The doctors who examined Bobbie Jo gave us information indicating we probably would have a live child if we could find it," Nodaway County Sheriff Ben Espey said Friday. "The child would be in danger because of being one month premature."

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"Someone was wanting a baby awful bad," Espey said earlier.

The sheriff issued an Amber Alert for the missing baby. Police are searching for a white, female baby. The report also suggested that things to look for in the case included "bloody clothing or towels, possible health issues with the fetus and a freshly cut umbilical cord."

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Stinnett was killed at about 3 p.m. CST, and "the unborn child was removed from her body by the person or persons who committed the crime."

Stinett's mother, who called police at 3:38 p.m., found her strangled to death inside her home, Kansas City, Mo., TV station KMBC reported. Paramedics tried to revive her, but she was later pronounced dead at St. Francis Hospital in Maryville, Mo.

Espey said it appeared the victim was killed no more than an hour before she was found. He said the woman may have struggled with her killer and that blonde hair was found in Stinnett's hand.

An autopsy was to be conducted by the Jackson County medical examiner.

There were no visible signs of forced entry into her small home, Espey said.

Stinnett was a dog breeder and reportedly sold rat terrier dogs over the Internet. One neighbor said he saw a red, two-door vehicle outside the home and assumed it was someone picking up a dog.

Apparently, someone was coming to look at one of the dogs Thursday afternoon.

"At 2:30 p.m., the mother called her daughter to have her come and get her at work and there were also some people from Fairfax that were going to come and look at a dog, and that's what that conversation was going to end up being about. 'They're here, mom to look at this dog,'" Espey said at a news conference Friday.

Espey offered piecemeal information about the victim. She was white, worked at Kawasaki Motors Manufacturing in Maryville, was married a little more than a year and was pregnant with her first child.

The husband has been ruled out as a suspect because he was at work at the time.

Espey said FBI agents were helping to investigate the case. Espey said they are following up on one particular lead -- a woman in another state who came home with a baby that was not from a hospital. Espey would not identify the state. He said detectives were headed to that location.

Espey said they had also received a tip regarding the baby possibly being sold on the black market.

"I think that lead is possibly going to go up in smoke. The third party has misled us. We're not going to pursue that as hard as we are two or three of the other (tips)," Espey said.

Espey said he did not think investigators were being deliberately misled by the tipster.

"I think people get too eager when the Amber Alert goes out, and make a phone call, and make themselves very convincing that 'I overhead a person say this and this is probably what happened,'" Espey said.

"She was a sweet lady. I don't know that she really bothered anybody. She just always stayed to herself. You know, she was real nice, real quiet," said a woman who lived nearby. "They were very excited about the family they were about to have."

A neighbor, Bill Dragoo, said Stinnett and her husband "didn't bother anybody. It blows my mind that this happened. She was such a shy person. They didn't deserve this."

Investigators want to question three people. Espey identified them as two men and a woman. He said they are looking for a 1980s or 1990s red, two-door hatchback, possibly a Honda. It was seen in the driveway of the Stinnett home around the time of the murder.

Skidmore is a small community of 500 in the northwest corner of Missouri, about 100 miles northwest of Kansas City.

Information on the case can be phoned into the Nodaway County Sheriff's Department at (660) 582-7451.