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Aleah Newell, 20, was charged Saturday with two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of her two children:7-month-old Ameer and 2-year-old Johntavis.
Newell also faces one count of attempted first-degree murder for allegedly stabbing her grandfather 10 times during last week’s deadly incident in and outside of a high-rise apartment.
Newell remains hospitalized in critical condition, recovering from a broken wrist and ankle sustained when she jumped from the 11th floor of an apartment building last Thursday.
They arrived to find Newell and Johntavis on the ground outside the building, where Newell’s grandfather lives,reports CBS Chicago. Inside his apartment, police found the grandfather on the floor, “moaning in a pool of blood.”
In his apartment’s bathtub was Ameer, who had been stabbed 19 times in the head,according to NBC News. His body was also covered in blisters from being placed facedown in the tub’s scalding water, the charging documents state.
Prosecutors say Newell was using the bath at the grandfather’s apartment when the 70-year-old grandfather came in to use the toilet,reportsthe Chicago Sun-Times. She allegedly hit him in the head with a towel bar before grabbing a knife and stabbing him repeatedly.
The paper, citing the charging documents, reports that Newell allegedly went into the living room, picked up her 2-year-old son, and threw him out the 11th story window.
Within 20 seconds, Newell threw herself out the window, crashing through window washer scaffolding on the third floor before hitting the concrete.
The grandfather is expected to survive the attack.
Speaking to ABC 7 in Chicago, Zera Newell, Aleah’s mother, said, “I don’t know why it happened, why she killed my grandkids.”
Zera Newell added that her daughter asked her on New Year’s Eve if she could watch her boys so that she could “get her life together,” prosecutors said in court Saturday, according tothe Sun-Times.
During Saturday’s proceedings, Judge Susana Ortiz called Newell’s alleged actions “reflective of wanton cruelty.”
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Newell has not entered pleas to the charges. Information on her lawyer was unavailable Monday. She is being held without bail.
Zera Newell told theSun-Timesher daughter had attempted suicide months ago, and that she had recently been living at a homeless shelter with her boys.
“My daughter, I don’t know what was going on, but I know deep inside she loved her kids,” Zera Newell said. “And my grandsons, I’m not gonna never forget them. I wanna always remember the good times I had with them for two years and seven months.”
If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), text “help” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 or go tosuicidepreventionlifeline.org.
source: people.com
