A mother accused of trying to kill her three children pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity Monday after a detective said the mother believed she was Christ, her children were the anti-Christ and that she needed to kill them.
Denver Detective Ken Klaus testified that Brenda Hernandez held her three children – ages 2, 3 and 7 – under water on Feb. 10 in the bathtub of her apartment as the children struggled to get away.
The oldest child told police that his mother wanted him to help drown his two younger sisters and also to help kill his “Aunt Betty,” whose arrival at the apartment may have stopped Hernandez before she could kill the children, police said.
The boy said that as his mother dunked him under the water, she said: “Please forgive me for putting you under the water.”
Klaus testified that relatives of Hernandez, 24, said she was was involved in a similar incident in Texas in 2000 and was committed to a mental hospital.
The detective said he didn’t know whether children were involved in the earlier event.
Gabriel Jordan, the first patrolman to arrive at the apartment, testified that he heard Hernandez shouting inside. When he knocked, she said: “Nobody is here, only Christ, only Christ.”
She then appeared at the door naked, soaking wet and looking angry. When she charged, she was subdued and handcuffed.
He said Hernandez kept repeating “the children were the anti-Christ and the children needed to die. We need to kill them. They are the devil.” Then she begged the officers to shoot the family.
“Just kill me, shoot me, shoot my kids,” she said.
As he searched the apartment, Jordan said he saw a naked, wet girl running from the bathroom and followed her into a bedroom, where he found her sister and brother naked on a bed.
The 7-year-old boy said his mother first took the oldest daughter and held her under water before she did the same to him, Klaus said. When his aunt, Elizabeth Rodriguez, knocked on the front door, his mother let him up and told him that she needed him to “help me kill her.”
Police responded to the apartment after Rodriguez called 911. They apparently interrupted Hernandez’s attempt to drown the third child, the youngest daughter, Klaus said.
Denver District Judge Anne Mansfield bound Hernandez over on three counts of attempted first-degree murder but ordered her evaluated at the state hospital.
