Chilling 8-minute 911 call by cousin of mother who smothered her children to death
Chilling 8-minute 911 call by cousin of mother who smothered her children to death
Authorities have released new details from a 911 call made last week by the cousin of a Philadelphia woman who admitted to suffocating her two children during a visit to Florida.
In the eight-minute call released Monday by Miramar police, the cousin, Neisha Nettleford, told the operator: ‘Honestly, I think they are dead.’
Nettleford made the call last Wednesday, the same day the children were suffocated.
She called police after the mother, Sophia Hines, contacted her and told her to come home.
Nettleford said she was scared and would not go inside the house.
However, once inside the home, she finds Hines’ two children.
She says in the call: ‘There’s two babies on the bed not breathing, froth coming from one of their nose and mouth and the other one is white, blank, not breathing.’
The call ends with Nettlford saying: ‘I am scared. I am not going to stay in the house by myself with her.’
Hines’ lawyer said that Hines had postpartum depression and was off her medication the day of the suffocations.
Hines has been charged with two counts of premeditated murder. She remained in Broward County Jail on Tuesday.
The 40-year-old allegedly suffocated her children by holding a bed sheet over their mouths.
The boy’s name was St Leo Hines, but authorities have not released the identity of the toddler.
Officers arrived at the property after receiving a 911 call about a ‘medical emergency’.
When the police arrived, a parent and a relative led them to the back of the house, where they found the two unresponsive children, the Miami Herald reported.
The officers performed CPR on the children until fire rescues crews arrived and declared them dead.
Miramar police spokeswoman Tania Rues did not say how the children died.
She would only say ‘foul play’ was suspected.
Student Marcus Freeman, who lives in the area, told Local 10 News he was getting ready for class when a woman knocked on his door asking him for help.
‘She was like hysterical. She was kind of in shock,’ Freeman said.
‘I came out, I (saw) her down the street. I asked: ‘You know what was going on?’ and she asked me to call the police and I was like: ‘Do you need me to call them to the house or what?”’
It is not clear if that woman is Hines.
She has been booked into Broward County Jail. Police added that Hines did not offer an explanation for her actions when she was arrested.
