A New Jersey mother who drowned her two children last year for “religious reasons” was found not guilty by reason of insanity, a court ruled Tuesday.
Naomi Elkins, 27, was charged with killing her daughters, ages 1 and 3, after drowning them in her bathtub on June 25 at her home on Shenandoah Drive in Lakewood, New Jersey.
Prosecutors said Elkins admitted to police she killed the girls for “religious reasons,” NBC Philadelphia reported.
“She thought that if she destroyed her children, she would be destroying all the evil in the world,” psychologist Gianni Pirelli testified on Tuesday, according to the Asbury Park Press.
Police responded to the report in June of two children suffering from cardiac arrest and arrived on the scene to find emergency responders from a volunteer ambulance program attempting to save them.
The toddlers were both pronounced dead at the scene. The younger child had been stabbed in the chest, according to the prosecutor’s office.
Pirelli also testified that Elkins was described as “emotionless” after the incident and her statements contained similar “religious themes,” such as the idea of being the Messiah, Asbury Park Press reported.
“She was undoubtedly psychotic at that time,” Pirelli said.
Defense attorneys confirmed Elkins has a history of mental illness, NBC Philadelphia reported.
After confessing to police, Elkins was given an opportunity to write a letter, which Pirelli read in court. “She writes, ‘You are evil. I’m deserving of death and destruction. I don’t know what I was. I loved my children, but I loved you more,'” as if it were written to God, Asbury Park Press reported.
Superior Court Judge Guy P. Ryan concluded Elkins was responsible for the death of her children, but ruled she was not guilty due to insanity. Ryan ordered Elkins to be committed to a psychiatric hospital for two lifetimes, according to Asbury Park Press. Under state law, each life sentence is 75 years.
Ryan also quoted from Elkins’ letter, reading, “I put me before my kids. How could a Jewish mother do that? How? How is it possible?”
Defense attorney Mitchell Ansell said Elkins will be periodically evaluated by the court and remain in a psychiatric institution, unless she reaches a point of being no longer considered a danger to others or herself, according to Asbury Park Press.
