Mother arrested after neighbor finds her three children with stab wounds, police say
According to authorities, the woman, 33, admitted to brutally attacking her children, slashing their wrists on Wednesday evening
A mother is in custody after she allegedly stabbed her three young children before screaming to neighbors that she couldn’t raise the family alone, witnesses said.
According to authorities, the woman, 33, admitted to brutally attacking her kids, a girl, one, and two boys, ages three and five, by slashing their wrists on Wednesday evening in Chicago.
The children were rescued when a neighbor saw the bloodied mother in the street pleading for help around 5:00 pm, reports CBS Chicago.
The neighbor, Devaughen Stringfellow, a tow-truck driver returning from work, said that after he encountered the bloodied woman, he piled the group into his car and sped off to the nearest hospital.
Stringfellow said that en route to the hospital, the eldest boy tried to comfort his mother, repeatedly telling her that everything would be “alright.”
“They were bloody. They were bloody, man,” he told CBS.
“She kept screaming like: 'I need help! Help me! My baby! I called the police! They didn't come! So, at first, I wasn't going to put them in my truck with the blood — but I threw them all in the truck.”
Stringfellow said that he did not know what had occurred but knew the injuries were serious.
“You could tell the little one was cut right here, because he was bleeding. The other one was bleeding from the side, and the one she had, he was just bloody.”
It was when the group arrived at a local hospital that Stringfellow said he learned what happened.
“When we was in the back the security guard asked her what happened. She was like, 'I did it because I got three different baby daddies and nobody's trying to help me.' That's when he grabbed her and took her and put her in that room,” the tow-truck driver told ABC Chicago.
The station reports that the woman fought with hospital staff and had to be restrained.
Stringfellow said that the most impactful part of the whole ordeal came during the car ride to the hospital as the woman’s five-year-old child attempted to comfort her.
“The little boy was in the truck like: 'Mama, it's going to be all right. It's going to be all right. Don't cry. When I got there and she said that, I really wanted to just — man, you know, we've got rules and laws now. But I was hurt.”
Witnesses have stated that the woman frequently discussed her ability to raise the children on her own.
“The mother seems like she just wanted help, help, help. But you never know what to do, and you want to reach folks before they reach that breaking point — because this is a breaking-point situation,” Street Pastor Donovan Price told the CBS affiliate.
All three children are listed in serious condition at the University of Chicago’s Comer Children’s Hospital. Charges against the mother are pending.