A mother of New Jersey who drowned her two children last year for “religious reasons” was declared innocent because of madness, a court ruled on Tuesday.
Naomi Elkins, 27, was accused of killing his daughters, 1 and 3 years old, after drowning in his bathtub on June 25 at his home in Shenandoah Drive in Lakewood, New Jersey.
The prosecutors said Elkins admitted to the police that he killed girls for “religious reasons,” NBC Philadelphia said.
“He thought that if he destroyed his children, he would be destroying all the evil of the world,” psychologist Gianni Pirelli testified on Tuesday, according to Asbury Park Press.
Police responded to the report in June two children who suffered a cardiac arrest and arrived at the scene to find emergency responders from a voluntary ambulance program that tried to save them.
Young children were declared dead on the scene. The youngest child had been stabbed in the chest, according to the prosecutor’s office.
Pirelli also testified that Elkins was described as “without emotions” after the incident and his statements contained “religious issues”, such as the idea of being the Messiah, said Asbury Park Press.
“It was certainly psychotic at that time,” said Pirelli.
Defensor lawyers confirmed that Elkins has a story of mental illness, NBC Filadelphia reported.
After confessing the police, Elkins had the opportunity to write a letter, which Pirelli read in the Court. “She writes: ‘You are evil. I am deserving death and destruction. I don’t know what I was. I loved my children, but I loved you more'”, as if writing to God, Asbury Park Press reported.
The judge of the Superior Court Guy P. Ryan concluded that Elkins was responsible for the death of his children, but ruled that he was not guilty due to madness. Ryan ordered that Elkins committed to a psychiatric hospital for two lives, according to Asbury Park Press. According to state law, each life imprisonment is 75 years.
Ryan also cited Elkins’ letter, reading: “I put myself before my children. How could a Jewish mother do that? How is it possible?”
The defense lawyer Mitchell Anell said that Elkins will be periodically evaluated by the court and will remain in a psychiatric institution, unless it reaches a point of not being considered a danger to others or itself, according to Asbury Park Press.
