Police: ‘Voices’ told mom to sit on sons in tub
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PITTSBURGH (AP) – A Pittsburgh-area woman told police she heard “crazy voices” telling her to push her sons underwater before she sat on the boys in the bathtub, drowning her 3-year-old son and leaving his 6-year-old brother in critical condition.
Forty-year-old Laurel Michelle Schlemmer, of McCandless, was jailed without bond after she was arraigned early Wednesday on charges including criminal homicide, aggravated assault and child endangerment.
Allegheny County detectives say Schlemmer told them she tried to drown her two youngest sons after her 7-year-old son left for school Tuesday morning.
Schlemmer allegedly told police she “thought she could be a better mother” to the oldest boy “if the other two boys weren’t around and they would be better off in heaven.”
Court records don’t list an attorney for Schlemmer, who faces a preliminary hearing April 11.