She was naked from the waist up, sitting on a bed and holding a children’s book upside down when the police found her in a Bronx shelter on Nov. 26, 2022, according to prosecutors.
The woman, Dimone Fleming, 22, had repeatedly stabbed her sons, Octavius Canada, 11 months, and Daishawn Fleming, 3, and then submerged them in a bathtub full of water.
On Monday, nearly four years later, prosecutors and a lawyer for Ms. Fleming, now 26, agreed she was in a state of psychosis when she killed her children. A judge found her not responsible by mental disease or defect. As a result, she will avoid prison, but could be hospitalized for months, if not years, if doctors determine she is still mentally ill.
The resolution, reached quietly in Bronx Criminal Court, came as national attention has been focused on the trial of Lindsay Clancy, a Massachusetts woman charged with murdering her three young children in 2023.
Her case, unlike Ms. Fleming’s, has drawn local and international coverage with Court TV constantly streaming testimony, and has revived discussion on how mentally ill mothers who kill their children should be treated and prosecuted. Ms. Clancy has admitted to strangling her children, but has said she was experiencing postpartum psychosis, a condition that can cause hallucinations and delusions. In contrast with Ms. Fleming’s case, Massachusetts prosecutors have rejected Ms. Clancy’s defense and have argued that she “coldly and calculatingly executed” her children.
In the Bronx case, prosecutors, who had initially charged Ms. Fleming with first-degree murder, said that trying her for the killings and seeking a prison sentence would not serve justice.
“Prosecuting mothers does not and cannot prevent these crimes from happening, but public discourse might,” Tiffany Wichman, a Bronx assistant district attorney, said in an interview after the judge, Audrey Stone, accepted the plea. “People talking about it is important, and I hope people continue talking about it.”
In November 2022, Ms. Fleming was working at a concession stand in Flushing Meadows in Queens and living in a shelter in the Mt. Hope neighborhood of the Bronx with Octavius and Daishawn. Columbus Canada, then Ms. Fleming’s boyfriend and Octavius’s father, lived with her and the children at the time.
For about two months, she had been going to the Floating Hospital in Queens, where she was being treated for symptoms of anxiety and depression, according to court records. Doctors gave her a diagnosis of major depressive disorder and prescribed her psychotropic medication.
But she was not taking the medicine and instead was using marijuana daily, which exacerbated the symptoms, according to court records.
The night she killed her children, Ms. Fleming was “grossly psychotic and out of touch with reality,” Dr. Eric Goldsmith, a psychiatrist who evaluated her at the request of prosecutors, wrote in a report.
She was hallucinating, convinced the world was coming to an end and that a spirit had invaded her body, Dr. Goldsmith wrote.
“Ms. Fleming believed her actions were necessary to protect or ‘cleanse’ her children,” according to a forensic psychiatric report written by doctors retained by the defense.
She stabbed her children with kitchen shears, then placed them in the bathtub where she covered them with a sheet.
Sometime before 7:30 p.m., an employee of the shelter called 911 after smoke and water started coming from the apartment. (She had left the stove on and the faucet running.) When the police arrived, the officers, who did not know about the boys and did not see the children, waited for emergency medical services to take Ms. Fleming, who was visibly agitated, to St. Barnabas Hospital.
Mr. Canada found the children when he returned home later that night. The boys were later declared dead at a hospital.
In court on Monday, Ms. Fleming, dressed in a white sweater and sweatpants, said she understood Judge Stone’s questions about her ability to comprehend the proceedings.
Ms. Fleming will be evaluated again by court-appointed psychiatrists and return to court on Sept. 18, when Judge Stone expects to make a ruling based on the results of their examinations.
Ms. Fleming faces three possible consequences, Judge Stone said.
If doctors determine she still has a mental illness and is dangerous, she could be committed to a high-security hospital and held for an initial six months, with her commitment extended indefinitely if her condition does not improve. If doctors find she is not dangerous but still mentally ill, she could be sent to a less restrictive hospital and evaluated again, with the possibility of an indefinite hold.
If they find she is mentally fit, she could be discharged, Judge Stone said. The court is likely to place conditions on her release, such as requiring her to attend counseling programs, according to Ms. Fleming’s lawyer, Jodi Morales.
Mr. Canada, 35, was in court on Monday and said in an interview that he forgave Ms. Fleming.
“She’s a good person,” Mr. Canada said. “She was a loving person. She loved kids.”
Ms. Fleming, who has been held at Rikers, still mourns her children, said Ms. Morales.
Ms. Morales praised the prosecutor, Ms. Wichman, describing her approach to the case as compassionate and understanding.
“Everybody recognized what we were dealing with here, so I think the resolution was a result of collaboration,” Ms. Morales said. “That doesn’t happen often when you’re on opposite sides of the table.”
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