Mom found guilty but mentally ill in child bathtub drownings
PITTSBURGH — A woman charged with drowning her two youngest sons in their bathtub because she wanted to be a better mother to their older brother was found guilty but mentally ill of third-degree murder.
Allegheny County Judge Jeffrey Manning on Thursday found that Laurel Schlemmer’s mental capacity was diminished by her illness, meaning she couldn’t form the specific intent to kill that was required of the first-degree murder conviction prosecutors sought for the April 2014 killings.
Schlemmer faces as much as 20 to 40 years in prison on each third-degree murder count, but because she was found mentally ill, she’ll begin any sentence in a state mental hospital and then will be moved to prison if doctors ever deem her cured.
“It is my fervent hope that in the future, mental health treatment will bring you, Ms. Schlemmer, to the shocking realization of what you have done so that you will continue to be punished far beyond any sentence this court may impose,” Manning said.