A Texas woman who slashed her daughter's throat and then suffocated her by placing a garbage bag over her head was found not guilty by reason of insanity this week.
Melissa Towne first slashed her 5-year-old daughter, Nichole Bradshaw-Towne, in the neck in October 2022. When she realized the child was still alive, she continued her attack, despite the child's pleadings that she had been "good," ABC 13 reported.
Towne placed a plastic bag over the child's head for 30 to 40 minutes until she was dead. Towne then took Nichole to a hospital ER, with the bag still on her head, telling hospital staff she needed a wheelchair to bring her daughter inside because the child's body was hurting, KHOU-11 reported. Staff found the girl in the woman's vehicle.
KHOU reported that Towne confessed to investigators, saying the girl was "evil" and comparing her to "Chucky."
The verdict means that Towne will not go to prison, but rather she will be committed to a state mental health facility for a length of time equal to what her prison sentence would have been, according to PEOPLE.
The Houston Chronicle reported that the only way she could be released was if she was deemed to no longer a threat to herself or others. The newspaper reported that Towne had a history of schizophrenia.
"She wasn't aware her, the child was dead for a while," one of Towne's lawyers, James Stafford said according to the Chronicle. "The best place for her would be in a mental hospital than a prison, just deteriorating and getting crazier and crazier. They don't treat mental illness in prison."
The newspaper reported that Stafford said there was a systemic failure, noting that Towne had been hospitalized related to her mental health at least nine times before she attacked her daughter.
