In Ohio, Deasia Watkins, who has been accused of decapitating her baby in her home, faced a grand jury today and pleaded not guilty to murder charges. Prosecutors said she will not face the death penalty due to her mental state.
On March 16th, children who were playing inside the home alerted police that there was a dead baby inside; and tragically, an early investigation showed that the baby suffered “multiple traumas.” Watkins’ daughter, Janiyah, was only three months old and prior to her death, there had been questions about Watkins’ mental health. In fact, at one point she was removed from Watkins care and placed with family members.
Authorities said police found her covered in blood in a bed at the aunt’s home.
Neighbor Jimmie Graham told the Daily Mail, “It was a lot of commotion going on out here this morning. They had the crime tape up, and I figured when the crime tape was up, somebody got hurt or killed or something. She must have been out of her mind. I heard she cut the baby’s head off.”
CLICK LIKE IF YOU’RE PRO-LIFE!
Today, Watkins pleaded not guilty to the crime:
De’asia Watkins, 20, of Cincinnati appeared in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court but spoke only to her lawyer in a hushed voice and kept her gaze down. Judge Charles Kubicki increased her bond to $5 million from $500,000 in the aggravated-murder case and ordered her to return to jail.
A competency hearing is the next step, Kubicki said.
“The Justice Center can simply not take care of her,” her defense lawyer said. “She is too sick.”
She will be transferred to Twin Valley Behavioral Healthcare facility in Columbus for a psychological evaluation, Kubicki said.
Watkins was considered a threat to her child and had been “acting crazy” and talking about demons when a juvenile court judge earlier in March placed the baby in the custody of Hamilton County Job and Family Services, according to court documents. Social workers later placed the baby in the aunt’s care, warning her to keep the mother away from the child unless social workers were present.
The Hamilton County Corner, Dr. Lakshmi Sammarco, said it remains unclear if Watkins acted alone.
She said, “It’s days like this when you really wonder how much evil there is in the world and how we’re fighting it. We’re trying to do right by this child. We’re trying to bring justice for this baby. We’re going to go over the evidence that we have, and try and make sense of this murder which, seems to us, is very senseless. We’re trying to do right by this child. We need to bring some justice for this baby.”
A spokesman for the corner’s office, Terry Daly, added, “It was very obvious the death was a homicide.”
As LifeNews previously reported, Nadejda Voronova was arrested in Russia after she cut off her disabled daughter’s head because she allegedly heard the voices of demons who told her to do it. The woman’s daughter, Yana, was seven years old and had cerebral palsy.
In 2010, Vornova divorced her husband and was raising her daughter alone. The police found out about the horrific incident from an anonymous tip that she had killed her daughter. Unbelievably, when they arrived at Vornova’s apartment, they found the child’s corpse with her head lying next to it. One neighbor told local TV, “She looked worse every day but she didn’t ask anyone to help, we thought she was managing.” Now Voronova is being held at a secure psychiatric ward waiting testing.
