Mad Woman Escapes Jail

Jeanette M Hawes has escaped a prison sentence for stabbing her two children to death. Ms Hawes convinced a court in Augusta, Georgia that voices in her head told her to slaughter her two children, three year old Shakayla and one year old Jordan in the toilets of a convenience store.

The court heard evidence from two psychiatrists who both agreed that Ms Hawes was suffering from schizophrenia. In early 2007 Ms Hawes began having paranoid delusions about her work colleagues which eventually led to her losing her job. She was prescribed anti-depressants in July 2007 but her paranoia increased and she began to hear voices which were controlling her actions.

In the days leading up to the double murder Ms Hawes was traveling around the country with her two children because she believed she was being pursued by something or someone. On November 29th 2007 she took a kitchen knife from her home and fled with her two children, when she reached a convenience store about a mile from her home she began to hear voices telling her to kill the children.

“I didn’t want them to have to run anymore,” Ms. Hawes told her psychiatrist. “I was trying to protect them … to stop them from being chased.

“I heard voices in the bathroom telling me to stab my kids.”

Ms Hayes then stabbed her three year old daughter Shakayla 11 times in the chest, puncturing her heart with one wound. Police reports suggest that cuts to the toddlers hands suggested she tried to defend herself. Ms Hawes then turned her attention to one year old Jordan and stabbed him six times in the chest sending the knife straight through his heart.

The prosecution agreed with the psychiatrists reports that Ms Hawes was acting with a delusional compulsion and was unable to tell right from wrong. The judge ordered a verdict of not guilty and Ms Hawes who will now stay in a mental hospital until the judge decides it is no longer necessary.

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