Updated: Memphis Mother Held After 4 Children Fatally Stabbed
A Memphis mother of four is being held for questioning after her children were found stabbed to death in a gated apartment complex in Tennessee. So far, authorities have not charged her with the crime.
Police deputies were called to the apartment complex, called The Greens at Irene, in unincorporated Shelby County just before 1 p.m. Friday and upon finding the children’s bodies, the mother was taken into custody. While officials have not released the names or ages of the children, Earle Farrell, a spokesman for the sheriff’s office, referred to them as “babies.”
According to a report by NBC News, authorities are waiting until they contact next of kin before releasing the names. Shelby County Sheriff Bill Oldham says at present they are not specifically charging the Memphis mother with stabbing her children, and investigators do not know if she has mental health issues.
DEVELOPING: Mother in custody after 4 children stabbed to death in Memphis https://t.co/zA1s4bonRg
— Fox News (@FoxNews) July 1, 2016
“This is an egregious act of evil that has shocked us to our core,” Oldham said. “I will never understand how anyone can do this.”
“One of the most difficult questions in any investigation is always, ‘Why did this happen?'” Oldham added.
According to Oldham, the district attorney general’s special victims unit has been called in and the Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell is offering all necessary resources to help in the investigation.
According to County Commissioner Mark Billingsley, the county will work to help the family of the dead children to recover from the horrifying incident.
“It’s just a very sad day,” Billingsley said. “It’s really beyond words, quite frankly.”
Neighbors in the typically quiet neighborhood of suburban Memphis were shocked by the incident. One neighbor Sean Ahearn said that while he didn’t know the family by name, he often saw the children – which he said all appeared under age 6 – playing in the front yard. Ahearn said the children enjoyed petting his dog when he was taking it for a walk.
“From what I saw, they were very open and friendly kids,” he said. “You never imagine that this kind of thing could happen.”
“This is an egregious act of evil” Mom arrested after 4 children fatally stabbed in Memphis https://t.co/EVkMw8u57y pic.twitter.com/K9XssGEz9I
— CityNews Toronto (@CityNews) July 1, 2016
According to a report by ABC, another resident, Patricia Johnson, said she wasn’t allowed to leave the complex for two hours as deputies investigated the scene of the murders.
As she is the mother of a child herself, she said she burst into tears when she heard about the killings adding, “I can’t fathom that,” she said. “What would babies do to make you do that?”
Johnson continued by saying she would pray for the family, including the mother, saying something must have gone drastically wrong.
As the apartment is in a gated community, deputies spend Friday afternoon standing at the gate house, questioning motorists as they entered the complex.
According to Rob Johnson of the State Department of Children’s Service, they had no record of interaction with the dead children or the Memphis mother and have offered their assistance to local law enforcement.
“We’ve done an exhaustive search and we are not aware of any contact with this family,” Rob Johnson said.
Johnson and others in Memphis were reminded of a similar horrifying scene in the area back in 2008, when Jessie Dotson went on a bloody rampage, killing six people, including two children, ages 2 and 4.
In that case, three other children were stabbed but luckily survived, including a 2-month-old girl and 9-year-old boy. Dotson was convicted of the crime and was sentenced to death in 2010.
Update:
As reported by the Tennessean, the mother of the four children who were stabbed to death has since been named as Shanynthia Gardner, 29.
Gardner has been charged with multiple offenses in connection with the stabling deaths of the four children, including four counts of first degree murder associated with aggravated child abuse, four counts of first degree murder in association with aggravated child neglect, plus four more counts each of aggravated child abuse and aggravated child neglect or endangerment.
Very little information is available on the children, other than the youngest victim was a 6-month-old girl. The other victims were a 4-year-old boy and girls aged 3 and 2.
[Photo via Flickr by Brandon Anderson, cropped and resized/CC BY-NC-ND 2.0]
