Florida mother, Odette Lysse Joassaint, told cops she didn’t want her two children after strangling them to death.
Miami police found Joassaint’s kids, Jeffrey Belval, 3, and Laural Belval, 5, unresponsive after they entered their home for a welfare check following several 911 calls the woman made on Apr. 12.
“Come get them,” she reportedly told cops and medics as they arrived at the scene. “I don’t want them anymore.”
First responders discovered the young children laying face-down on a bed with their necks, hands, and feet, bound together at 131 NE 75th St., in the Little River neighborhood and tried to revive them to no avail. They were pronounced dead at the scene.
According to an arrest report, their 41-year-old mother admitted to tying them up and strangling them with a red ribbon, WSVN reported. She also told stunned detectives that the children were suffering under her care as she said she was dealing with financial and mental issues.
Joassaint made her first court appearance on Apr. 13, where Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Mindy S. Glazer explained that the allegedly deranged woman was charged for two counts of first-degree murder. She was reportedly wearing a padded gown that was designed to prevent suicide.
That morning her kid’s distraught father, Frantzy Belval, showed up at their home holding baby pictures of them.
“I can’t talk to you,” he said to news reporters. “The police told me, the police talked to me in the house, but I don’t know what to say.”
He reportedly went through multiple domestic spats with his son and daughter’s mother. Both parents went to jail at least once for domestic violence allegations, which eventually drew the attention of Florida’s child welfare agency, the Florida Department of Children and Families.
Despite the turmoil, family friend Darlene Petion described the children as “sweet” and “happy.”
“They [were] little sweet, happy children. I love these kids so much. I can’t believe [Joassaint would] do that because I’m always talking to her, how she take care of the kids, you know,” she said.”What’s inside your brain…Is there a devil in your head that could do that? Come on.”
An unnamed neighbor said he saw the children regularly, as they frequently came to visit him.
“They would say, ‘Hi.’ They always came up to my house, like, knocked on the door, said hi, gave them candy and stuff like that, but it’s sad, though,” he told WSN.
Another woman, who claimed she was the kid’s godmother, told reporters that Joassaint had mental issues and begged her to adopt them. She found out they passed away when she arrived to their residence shortly after they were pronounced dead.
Joassaint has been held without bail in a Miami jail.
