CNN reported that, -- She was trying to get help for her sister.
Help for a woman who was
distraught and uneven, having driven to Florida to get away from her
husband. Who had gone, at her sister's urging, to a hospital only to
sign herself out earlier in the day. A woman who was "talking about
Jesus and that there's demons in my house," her sister said on a 911
call.
"I'm trying to control
her," the sister said, expressing worry about her sister's three
children. "... I'm trying to keep them safe."
At first, the plea
appeared to pay off: Police caught up to the woman -- later identified
as Ebony Wilkerson -- after she sped away from her sister's Daytona
Beach apartment. An officer questioned her as her three children sat in
the Honda Odyssey's backseat, smiling and seemingly calm. Wilkerson
explained that she feared for her safety, worried that her estranged
husband would harm them.
Mom charged after driving into ocean
Why would a mother try to kill her kids?
Sister's 911 plea for ocean crash mom
Warning signs in Ebony Wilkerson case
According to a Daytona
Beach Police report, the officer believed she might have a mental
illness. Despite these concerns, the officer talked to a detective also
at the scene and let her go on her way, concluding she couldn't be held
under a Florida law that allows for detention of people believed to be
impaired by mental illness and who possibly pose a risk of harm.
Almost two hours later
Tuesday, Wilkerson drove her black minivan -- with the three kids still
inside -- into the surf of the Atlantic Ocean.
Tim Tesseneer was driving
along Daytona Beach on Tuesday with his wife when they noticed the
minivan driving through shallow water. They heard the screams, he said,
of two children, who were crying and waving for help out of one of the
rear windows.
Tesseneer threw the car
in park and raced over to help. One child was screaming, Tesseneer
recalled Wednesday to CNN's Piers Morgan. "'Please help us, our mom is
trying to kill us.'"
The other child he could
see was wrestling a woman for the steering wheel. But the woman just
kept saying, "'We're OK. We're OK. We're OK,'" as another man joined
Tesseneer trying to get the driver to stop.
With the minivan in the
cold, heavy surf of the Atlantic, the second man, Stacy Robinson, opened
a door and pulled out the two panicked children. There was a good
chance if he and Tesseneer hadn't been there, the children, ages 10 and
9, would have drowned inside the van as it pitched in the water,
officials said.
Another child, a
3-year-old girl, was strapped in a car seat. A lifeguard dived in
through a front window and unbuckled the child and handed her to another
lifeguard as the vehicle bobbed in water about 3 feet deep.
Meanwhile, Wilkerson walked away quietly with a strange, almost "possessed" look on her face, witnesses said.
Not for long.
Authorities quickly caught up to her. And on Friday she was officially
arrested on three counts of attempted first-degree murder, according to
Volusia County Sheriff Ben Johnson.
Given what authorities
have said since Tuesday's incident, the charges hardly come as a
surprise. Still, as more details come out -- like the sister's 911 call
and the charging affidavit -- they paint an ever more disturbing
picture, especially for Wilkerson's children.
For evidence of their
ordeal, one need only listen to what all three continuously uttered when
officers caught up with them at Halifax Health Medical Center.
"Mom tried to kill us."
Mom said: 'I am keeping all of us safe'
The story begins in
South Carolina, where Wilkerson and her children had been until she made
the decision to leave the state, to leave her husband behind. Her
children later detailed the fractured relationship between their
parents, as well as the time her son got into trouble after speaking to
authorities probing a domestic situation there.
"She came down to me for
protection," Wilkerson's sister explained in her 911 call, of the
quartet coming to the eastern Florida coast.
Wilkerson's sister was
especially concerned about protecting the three children. Wilkerson's
fragile mental state led her to call police to ask for a well-being
check "because she's ... having psychosis or something or postpartum."
The sister explained
they'd gone to the hospital Monday, only to have a pregnant Wilkerson
check herself out the next day even though "she's still not all there."
And she'd taken away the minivan's keys so her sister couldn't drive
away with her children.
Or so she thought.
However she did it, Wilkerson drove off as her sister talked with police.
That was followed by the initial encounter with the officer and detective, then later the incident on Daytona Beach.
The children later told
investigators that their mother told them "to close their eyes and go to
sleep." As they screamed as the minivan went into the water, she
insisted she was taking them to a better place, saying repeatedly: "I am
keeping all of us safe."
After their rescue,
Wilkerson herself talked to authorities. "She seemed confused and jumped
from one religious topic to another," states the charging affidavit.
Wilkerson explained at
one point that she'd been driving "too close to the water (when) the
waves pulled her in." Then, near the end of their talk, she said she did
not want her husband around her children.
On Thursday night, an
arrest warrant was signed for Wilkerson. And shortly after 11 a.m. --
after being released from Halifax Health -- she was arrested.
Wilkerson was being held
on three counts of aggravated child abuse in addition to the
first-degree murder charge, Johnson said Friday.
Her bond has been set at
$1.2 million, said James Purdy, the elected public defender for the 7th
Judicial Circuit of Florida. Purdy said he would seek a court hearing
on that bond, which could occur in the next week or so. He said he was
going to speak with Wilkerson on Saturday.
Investigators have
claimed in the charging affidavit: "Ebony Wilkerson acted with
premeditated design to kill her three children.
Source: CNN
0 Comments