State v. LeRoya M.

Citations

• 340 Conn. 590

Syllabus

Convicted, after a trial to a three judge panel, of two counts of murder in connection with the deaths of her two children, the defendant appealed to this court. The police reported to the defendant's home in response to a phone call from the defendant's friend, who had received an alarming letter from the defendant in the mail. When the defendant exited her home after the police arrived, she had lacerations on her wrists and told the police that she had ''saved them.'' While the defendant was transported to the hospital, the police entered the defendant's residence and found the children's bodies, as well as a suicide note written by the defendant, in which she stated that, ''if I burn for eternity at least I'll know why I deserve it.'' Autopsies revealed that the children died of acute intoxication from an antihistamine with sedative properties. At trial, the defendant did not dispute that she had killed her children but raised the affirmative defense of mental disease or defect, claiming that, at the time of the murders, she lacked the substantial capacity to either appreciate the wrongfulness of her conduct or to control her conduct within the requirements of the law. The defendant's version of events was admitted into evidence largely through the testimony and written report of her expert witness, A, a forensic psychiatrist. According to A, the defendant was suffering from psychosis and, as a result, devel- oped a ''religious delusion'' that killing her children and herself was ''God's plan.'' In A's opinion, at the time she killed her children, the defendant did not appreciate that what she was doing was wrong and was not able to control her conduct in accordance with the law. A recounted how, on the day in question, the defendant took the children to a store and then to a fast food restaurant, where she conceived of a method to end their lives. Specifically, because the children had not yet been baptized, she decided to drown them to accomplish their death an