Posted on 10/21/2005 2:36:23 PM PDT by Graybeard58
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- The woman seen dropping her young sons into San Francisco Bay pleaded innocent Friday to three counts of murder.
Lashuan Harris, described as mentally ill by family members, kept her head down and held her public defender's hand through most of the brief court hearing. She quietly answered "yes" when the San Francisco Superior Court judge asked if she was willing to waive her right to a speedy preliminary hearing.
Harris, 23, faces three counts of murder with the "special circumstance" of multiple murder. A claim of special circumstances means a murder defendant could be eligible for the death penalty, but San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris said she hasn't yet decided on whether to actually seek such a sentence.
"I've also said I'll always review the facts and compare them to the law before I announce my decision," she said outside court Friday.
Her lawyer, Teresa Caffese, refused to address questions about Harris' mental state, saying only her client was under suicide watch. She's being held without bail.
"It's very, very difficult," Caffese said. "This can't be captured in words right now."
Authorities said Harris, a former nurse's assistant who was living in a homeless shelter, was seen putting her three boys in the bay Wednesday.
The body of Harris' middle son, Taronta Greeley, 2, was recovered late Wednesday about two miles from Pier 7. The other two - Treyshun Harris, 6 and Joshoa Greeley, 16 months - remained missing, but were presumed dead after so many hours in the water.
The U.S. Coast Guard called off its search Thursday afternoon, but the San Francisco police and fire departments continue to scour the bay for the two bodies.
Harris' next court hearing was scheduled Oct. 28.
Harris told investigators she had taken the anti-psychotic drug Haldol to control schizophrenia but stopped when she got her symptoms under control over the summer, according to a police report. But she said the voices returned Tuesday night and were still with her when she put her children into the water, according to the report.
Family member said Harris had made threats before. An aunt told the San Francisco Chronicle the threats had prompted the woman's mother to contact authorities, but others said they didn't think Harris would actually kill her children.
"She told my mama she was going to feed them to the sharks," said Britney Fitzpatrick, Harris' 16-year-old half sister. "No one thought it was that serious."
Demarcus Harris, Lashuan Harris' cousin, said the last time he saw her was Tuesday at his sister's house in Oakland and the boys were with her.
When his cousin left, she said goodbye and "I'm going to miss y'all." He said neither he nor his sister suspected what she would do the next day. "We all thought she was just going home," he said.
Harris was hospitalized in January at the John George Psychiatric Pavilion in San Leandro and her mother was briefly granted custody of the boys, according to her older sister, Telicia Harris, 26.
Alameda County social service workers concluded after the first hospital stay that Lashuan was fit to care for her sons, Telicia Harris said.
Lashuan Harris' aunt, Joyce Harris, told the Chronicle for Friday's editions that Lashuan's mother had contacted social services officials about three months ago to seek partial custody of the children. She made the request because Harris had stopped taking medication and had made threats regarding the boys, the paper reported.
"They said she was sane, that they couldn't do anything," Joyce Harris told the newspaper.
Sylvia Soublet, a spokeswoman for the Alameda County Social Services Agency, told the Chronicle she could not discuss whether the family had contacted her agency about gaining custody.
"Lashuan is very protective of the children and I think one of the reasons Lashuan stopped taking her medication was for fear of losing her three children," an uncle, Avery Garrett, told NBC's "Today" show Friday.
Pleading not guilty is standard procedure. Doesn't really mean anything.
I just cannot have any sympathy for this woman...or anyone else who would deliberately harm a child.
Yeah, actually. Does CA have a guilty-but-insane option for juries?
"This can't be captured in words right now."
***
I can think of a few choice words, but out of respect for many who are offended by those words, I will refrain.
Yeah, I'll bet it is. The three dead children are merely inconvenienced and this woman (The Mother) is having a difficult time. I hope it gets much, much more 'Difficult' for her.
Susan Smith, Andrea Yates now this piece of trash. What is wrong with this world? It's pure evil.
She had her chance to murder them legally before they were born.
She stopped taking her medication because she thought she had her illness under control. From what I've read, this is typical. And then all hell breaks loose. Mentally sick people belong in asylums. They should never have closed them.
Mental illness is a privacy thing until you have to use it as a defense/excuse.
You just cannot have it both ways, I am sorry.
This is another privacy murder, just like abortion, privacy right now prolongated by the very opportune disclosure of the mental illness, period (notwithstanding that authorities never believe a man we he says his wife is nuts, because that means he can control her and she has no privacy).
Why should society be counseled thus and take in the unrepenting risks of these people? Mental illness is so selectively chosen, it's ridiculous, because, come to think of it, rage itself is an addiction, government theft is an addiction, and what not. This is a lawyer/gov/feminist CYA operation.
Stopping meds is not always reasonable doubt, I am sorry. Anyone can play the system: oh, I took meds and now I stopped.
Everyone takes meds one time or another, dang it.
Now the insane are loose in our country and cannot be restrained until they do murder.
This is bad for them, and for the rest of us.
Whether it is meds, no meds, whatever, it's all very bad counsel, foreign and unknown objects in and out of people's lives, privacy of doctors, drug effects and people oblige. All these are unwanted guests or agents whose effects are not really known.
It is thus no wonder why she treated her own kids as unwanted guests then, completely foreignized. Today's cult of "life" is bunch of plagues passed around so that people "feel good", no matter what they do to others, themselves or what others do to them.
It's basicaly like an orgy whose content could be illustrated by pornographic like treats.
But her uncle said she really loved her children.....tragic way to show the love...poor babies
Chewbacca defense coming.
I just cannot have any sympathy for this woman...or anyone else who would deliberately harm a child.
----I'm with you on that . No sympathy at all.
I don't know much about schizophrenia but if this man is an example of what people with this illness suffer through, they are very unstable people, especially when not medicated properly or at all.
The grandmother should have gotten custody of those kids.
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