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Mother Held in Slaying and Decapitation of Daughter

KXTV, USA
June 16, 2005
www.news10.net

ReligionNewsBlog.com • Thursday June 16, 2005

A mother who authorities say was a member of a bizarre cult stands accused of drowning her six-year-old daughter, then decapitating the child and dumping her body off a bridge in Washington state.

According to Kings County Sheriff’s Department investigators, 30-year-old Samara Spann was a member of a cult that worships the late rap star Tupac Shukar. Investigators say Spann became convinced her daughter Kyeimah was possessed by demons and killed the child on or about December 31, 2004.

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Spann reportedly told detectives that after she drowned her daughter in the bathtub of her home in White Center, Washington, she left the house to stay in a motel. After two days she said she went to a hardware store to buy an ax, a chain and a padlock. She told investigators she went back to the house, laid the child’s body on a blanket and sheet on the floor and chopped off the head.

According to detectives, after Spann decapitated the child she put the chain and padlock around the body to weight it, placed it in a plastic laundry bin and put it in her car. Police say she drove south from Kings County, eventually stopping and dumping the child’s body from a bridge.

Investigators say that after the daughter’s body had been disposed of, Spann returned to Sacramento with two other children where, for five-and-a-half months, she kept the crime a secret.

One week ago, Spann’s father contacted The Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department because he wanted to file a missing person’s report for his granddaughter. He also reported he had received an anonymous call that Samara had killed her child.

Spann was arrested on Friday at a friend’s house. She was initially booked on an unrelated child abuse charge pertaining to one of her other children, but allegedly confessed to killing her daughter during an interview with detectives. She is now being held on a homicide warrant and will likely face extradition to Washington to face formal charges.

News10 talked to Gary Spann, the suspect’s father, after his daughter’s alleged confession. He expressed horror about what has allegedly happened to his granddaughter, but not surprise. “We started hearing Samara when she talked to her daughter,” he said. “She started calling her a demon. And this happened before she was even a year old.”

The father said he never witnessed his daughter hurting her children, but assumed that abuse was taking place. “I never saw her abuse the children but all the reports, we’re sure it happened,” he said. “We saw marks and stuff like that we reported. Even the school saw the marks and they reported it.”

Spann said Child Protective Services knew about his daughter. He said his family wanted custody of her children, “but through the system, she being the mother, she had all the rights,” he said.

Samara Spann moved to Washington two years ago. “Once she got out of our sight, we don’t know what those kids went through,” the father said.

Spann’s surviving 14-year-old daughter and 11-month-old son have been placed in protective custody.