A 36-year-old Florida woman has been charged with attempted murder after she allegedly instructed her 10-year-old daughter over a gaming platform to kill a baby.
The Escambia County Sheriff’s Office says that Tara Alexis Sykes told the child to drown a 2-month-old boy in the bathtub, burn the infant with scalding water, and drop the baby on a tile floor, NBC News reported.
Sykes also reportedly told the child how to kill the adults in the home, where she was living temporarily, by “cutting their throats with a knife while they slept” and to burn the house down by dousing bed sheets with aerosol spray then setting them on fire. The girl doused the sheets but was unable to light them.
The sheriff’s office said Gulf Coast Kids House contacted them on October 17 about the infant, who suffered “serious injuries” after the 10-year-old dropped the child on the kitchen floor.
Gulf Coast Kids House is a child advocacy center where interviews and exams of suspected abuse are conducted.
According to the arrest report, the foster father where the girl and the boy were living picked the child up from the floor after the 10-year-old dropped him and took him to a hospital. The boy had a skull fracture but is expected to survive.
The arrest report said that the 10-year-old told investigators her mother told her drop the baby boy on the floor and that she was “terrified of her mother and felt that if she did not follow through with the instructions, Sykes would harm or kill her as well.”
Sykes is reportedly also related to the infant.
“I have been in Law Enforcement for over 40 years and have never seen anything quite like this. I am truly disturbed by the circumstances and the thought that anyone could think like this, let alone instruct these acts to be carried out. There is something really wrong with her,” Escambia County Sheriff Chip Simmons said.
Sykes allegedly gave the girl the instructions over the gaming platform Roblox.
