<a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/06-26-2003/news/crime_file/story/95641p-86679c.html" target="_blank">Psycho mom's not guilty </a>
Quote:
| A mentally ill mom who drowned her 4-year-old daughter in a bizarre exorcism was found not responsible for the child's death by a Manhattan judge. Sabrina Wright's mental state drove her to kill Signifagance Oliver in her Washington Heights apartment in November 2001, the judge found in accepting a plea deal. Wright, 31, who is now on antipsychotic drugs, said she thought her daughter was possessed by the devil and believed she could save her by dunking her in a full bathtub. "I put her in the tub and tried to bless her," Wright told the judge. "I had her in the water and I was trying to bless her with the water." The plea agreement means Wright is not guilty because her severe mental illness prevented her from understanding that what she was doing was wrong. She will remain in custody, and state psychiatrists will evaluate her to determine whether she is mentally ill and dangerous. Fitzgerald told Wright that she could spend the rest of her life in mental hospitals. Assistant District Attorney Susan Broderick said prosecutors agreed to the plea because their psychiatrist agreed with a defense doctor that Wright was severely mentally ill and didn't understand what she was doing. Sick and dangerous Broderick noted that defense psychiatrist Robert Berger concluded Wright was both ill and dangerous and should be in "a secure forensic inpatient facility." Her lawyer, Daniel Gotlin, said his client has been in and out of mental hospitals since she was 7 and was hospitalized again months before the drowning. Gotlin blamed Virginia's courts for the tragedy, saying officials there returned the girl and her twin sister, Ellagance, to Wright without an interview after New York authorities had removed the children because Wright abused them. |
