New Haven (US): A Connecticut woman and mother convicted of killing her two children saying it was God’s plan was sentenced to 120 years in prison without the possibility of parole.
LeRoya Moore, 39, was sentenced Thursday, following her conviction in March of two counts of murder for killing her six-year-old daughter, Aleisha, and her seven-year-old son, Daaron, at the family’s home in East Haven in 2015. For each count of murder, she received 60 years.
“It’s a no win today, the sentence reflects the seriousness of the crimes but the children are still gone,” New Haven State’s Attorney Patrick Griffin said during the hearing.
Moore’s attorneys tried to use an insanity defence, saying she was in a psychotic state at the time but the three-judge panel rejected the defense in March.
Autopsies showed the children died from antihistamine intoxication, but a defence psychiatrist said Moore told him she drowned them while trying to ‘baptize them’ after God told her she had to ‘kill them’.
Moore also stayed in the house for three days with the bodies telling the police she ‘saved them’. Griffin added the drug used was Benadryl, an over-the-counter medication.
A Yale psychiatry professor testified at trial that Moore suffered from schizoaffective disorder during the killings and still suffered from it. However, it did not influence the judges.
Moore will serve the sentences consecutively at York Correctional Institution, where she is housed now in East Lyme. Moore’s attorney was not immediately available for comment.
AP