Dimone Fleming.
Police initially took Fleming to a hospital for evaluation after finding her behaving irrationally. The children’s bodies were discovered later after their father, Columbus Canada, went to the apartment.
Dimone Fleming, 26, was found not responsible by mental disease or defect for the deaths of her 3-year-old son Daishawn Fleming and 11-month-old Octavius Canada at a family shelter in the Bronx. The children were found with multiple stab wounds in a bathtub after a shelter employee called 911 on November 26, 2022, reporting water and smoke coming from Fleming’s apartment.
A prosecution psychiatrist said Fleming was “grossly psychotic and out of touch with reality”, experiencing hallucinations and believing that a spirit had invaded her body. Defence experts said she believed her actions were necessary to protect or “cleanse” her children.
Because of severe mental illness, a Bronx judge has found a mother of two not guilty by reason of insanity in the 2022 deaths of her young children, ruling that she was not criminally responsible. The case has drawn fresh attention as a Massachusetts jury deliberates the fate of Lindsay Clancy, who is accused of killing her three children amid claims that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis.
Lindsay Clancy case
She is due back in court on September 18, and could remain in a psychiatric hospital for months or years. The Bronx ruling comes as jurors in Massachusetts deliberate in the closely watched case of Lindsay Clancy, who is accused of killing her three children — 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson and 8-month-old Callan — at their Duxbury home in January 2023. Fleming will remain in custody for now and undergo another psychiatric evaluation to determine whether she poses a threat to others.