Ohio Mom Killed Children ‘To Save Them From Evils’: Police

DAYTON, OH — A Dayton woman accused of fatally shooting two of her children in the head was ordered held on $1 million bond in a hearing Monday in Dayton Municipal Court. According to court records, Claudena Helton, 30, told detectives she shot the children to “save them from the evils of the world.”

The two children, 8-year-old Khmorra and her 6-year-old brother, Kaiden, died Sunday at Dayton Children’s Hospital. An 11-year-old daughter home at the time of the May 18 shootings wasn’t injured but has since been taken into protective custody, according to media reports.

Helton asked the girl to help her remove the children from the home in the 3800 block of Lori Sue Avenue and place their bodies outside in the yard, according to court documents. Police found a Glock Model 43 9mm handgun, shell casings and bullet fragments inside the home. Helton is believed to have mental health issues, according to media reports.

Helton was initially arraigned last week on charges of attempted murder and felonious assault. Now that the children have died, the charges are expected to be upgraded. She appeared before Municipal Court Judge Christopher Roberts via video.

A neighbor told the Dayton Daily News that Helton was naked, had a blank expression on her face and was walking around in circles when police arrived. “She wouldn’t blink. She wasn’t violent. She wasn’t aggressive. She wasn’t anything. She was … blank,” said the woman, who asked not to be identified.

Helton didn’t resist when police took her into custody, the woman said, noting, “She just looked lost and zoned out.”

Dayton police Chief Richard Biehl told the Dayton Daily News the shootings of two young children are “one of the toughest” cases ever for his detectives and “very traumatic for the community.”

Neighbors said they were stunned by the shootings.

“Ain’t no kids think their mommy would do that, you know what I’m saying," Deona Terry told WDTN. “To know that your mommy is your monster, your mommy is the one to attack you and take your life. Don’t no kid think that, ever.”

Stability has been fleeting for the children. Helton had previously been charged with child endangerment, police had been called to the home on a domestic violence report, Helton filed for bankruptcy in 2015 and the fathers of the two children who were killed have criminal records, according to media reports.

Khmorra’s father, Lynntonio S. Watson, 30, was convicted of murder and felonious assault in the September 2013 shooting of Martell Gray, 19, the Dayton Daily News reported.

Stephen Fletcher, the mostly absentee father of Kaiden who has seen the 6-year-old only four times since his birth, told the Dayton Daily News he was “devastated” and was unable to sleep and eat.

“I don’t even know what to do with myself,” Fletcher said. “I have no answers for nothing.”

Fletcher served 123 days in jail on charges that he threatened Claudena Helton’s life in 2010, punched her in the face and choked her, the Dayton Daily news reported.

In 2014, police were called to a preschool Khmorra attended to investigate reports that confirmed bruising on the child’s arms and chest, marks on her cheeks and a cut on her lip. The girl told her teacher that her mother repeatedly hit her with the buckle end of a belt because she was crying.

The children’s aunt took custody of Khmorra and the other children for several days as part of a safety plan, but Helton was not arrested, according to the Dayton Daily News.

“Although I felt the discipline was very excessive, I didn’t think it rose to the level of serious physical harm,” the police officer wrote in his narrative about the investigation. “I made clear to her that that could change once the doctors examined her daughter.”

In a statement Friday, Montgomery County Children Services said it had an open file on the family and said the agency is “truly disturbed” by the shootings, WCPO-TV reported.

Photo: Montgomery County Jail