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Lashuan Harris: Mother believes SF Bay drownings led her children to heaven

AP, via SFGate.com, USA
May 24, 2006
Kim Curtis
sfgate.com

ReligionNewsBlog.com • Thursday May 25, 2006

[Update: Woman who threw three kids in SF bay on trial for murder]

San Francisco (AP) — The day after a 23-year-old mother dropped her three young children into San Francisco Bay, she seemed almost serene, pleased that she had carried out God’s will, a psychiatrist testified Wednesday.

“She had a strong conviction in her religious beliefs and what she had done,” said Dr. Gilbert Villela who examined Lashuan Harris on Oct. 20, 2005. “She was not a murderer, she was pure and she was in the right mind.”

The testimony came during the second day of Harris’ preliminary hearing in San Francisco Superior Court to determine whether there’s enough evidence for prosecutors to take the case to trial.

Harris has pleaded not guilty to three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Treyshun Harris, 6, Taronta Greeley Jr., 2, and Joshoa Greeley, 16 months.

Defense lawyer Teresa Caffese said Harris is a longtime paranoid schizophrenic. Villela reached the same conclusion after spending more than a month treating her at San Francisco General Hospital.

Prosecutor Linda Allen asked Villela whether he could be sure she suffered from mental illness the day before he examined her.

He agreed psychiatry was an inexact science, but said her auditory hallucinations and religious delusions were powerful and she was unable to resist them.

“She had to carry out these commands from God,” he said. “It was her attempt to transfer her children to heaven.”

Villela also described a letter Harris wrote to her children in heaven and how she asked him to deliver it by plane.

“It was almost like I was talking to someone who believed in Santa,” he said. “It was very childlike.”

In the letter, decorated with purple crayon and blue and orange marker, Harris asked, “How is heaven holding up? I know I might not get a letter back. … Kiss my boys for me.”

Although prosecutors have not said whether they will seek the death penalty, Harris said she was looking forward to execution so she could join her children.

“She didn’t believe her children were dead,” he said. “She believed her children were in heaven, alive.”