‘Voices Told Me To Do It’: Woman Slashes 8-Year-Old Daughter’s Throat, Charged With First-Degree Murder

Christine Courtney, a 30-year-old woman, slashed her 8-year-old daughter’s throat before attempting to kill herself Sunday at a residence she shared with her grandparents in Walker, Louisiana, WAFB is reporting.

According to authorities, police were contacted through a 911 call to the house, Christine Courtney and her daughter, Ariana, were staying shortly after 9 a.m. over an aggravated battery complaint.

By the time the first respondents got to the scene, the young girl was already unconscious. Police officers and paramedics battled to save the girl’s life, but she was pronounced dead at the scene.

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Christine Courtney had tried slitting her own throat but was restrained by police officers before she could fully carry out the act. She had allegedly told people that “different people were telling her to take her own life and that of the child.”

The 30-year-old woman, who suffered deep cuts to the throat in an abortive suicide attempt, was airlifted to a Baton Rouge hospital where she was reported to be in stable condition. The Sheriff’s Office has already obtained a warrant and will charge Courtney with first-degree murder as soon as possible.

A crime scene cleanup truck was sighted parked in the drive way with shocked residents milling around and discussing the incident. Rev. Wes Courtney, pastor of Revival Temple and not related to the Christine Courtney family said the unpleasant incident had left the grandparents who had lived in the area for a long time in a state of severe shock.

“As you can imagine, they’re upset and asking a lot of questions. It’s just a tragic, tragic thing.”

Maggie Morgan, a former neighbor of the woman and dead child at an apartment complex a few years ago described Ariana as a “ray of sunshine”.

“Our kids played together when they lived here. Ariana was a very smart, very sweet, very silly girl. She was such a good kid. I just don’t understand why she did that to her girl.”

Morgan, a mother-of-four, said sometimes Christine seemed off, forgetting to collect rent checks for the apartments she was meant to be managing and not having any recollection of conversations that occurred minutes ago.

The Sheriff’s Office in a statement said members of the District 4 Fire Department and Walker Police Department were dispatched to the scene and performed CPR on an 8-year-old girl they discovered in a pool of blood.

The statement confirmed that the young girl had suffered deep cuts to her throat, and it had been caused by her mother. The statement said that the 30-year-old woman had also tried to take her own life, concluding that the lacerations to her throat area were self-inflicted.

The sheriff’s department said that at this point, there was no indication that the girl’s killing was connected to the extensive flooding that had destroyed much of the area in previous days. Rev. Wes Courtney said the Courtney house had remained largely untouched despite the widespread damage in the area.

This is not the first time that a woman would be killing children that she brought into the world.

In June, a Texan woman shot her daughters to death because she wanted to punish her husband. Christy Sheats, a 42-year-old woman, had called for a family meeting with her husband and two daughters Taylor, 22, and Madison, 17. Christy did not shoot her husband, Jason Sheats. However, she refused to put down her weapon and was fatally shot by police officers.

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Authorities at a news conference had revealed the murderous mother had a history of depression and was on the verge of divorcing her husband. They also revealed that Christy had attempted suicide several times before.

The Sheats marriage had been in a downward spiral since 2012 when Christy’s grandfather died. The gun that she used in the callous killings belonged to her grandfather.

The Christine Courtney story is still developing.

[Image via iStock]