Death Penalty Sought For St. Pete Woman Accused Of Killing Son, 4: Court Records

ST. PETERSBURG, FL — Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for a St. Petersburg woman accused of suffocating her 4-year-old son, Finley, in January, Pinellas County court records show.

Diana Cullom, 44, was charged with first-degree murder in the boy’s Jan. 27 death.

Her 16-year-old daughter told police that when she returned home from school, she found her mother, bloody from self-inflicted stab wounds, holding her brother in bed, Patch previously reported.

Cullom admitted to killing her son by suffocating him with a plastic bag, police said in her arrest affidavit.

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She told investigators that she had thoughts of killing the boy the night before and the day of his death.

Cullom is being held at Pinellas County Jail without bond.

State Attorney Bruce Bartlett filed an April 1 notice of intent to seek the death penalty in the case.

In the notice, the state attorney’s office said that it can prove that the boy’s death “was a homicide and was committed in a cold, calculated and premeditated manner without any pretense of moral or legal justification.”

His death is also a “capital felony [that] was especially heinous, atrocious or cruel,” the office added.

A hearing about Cullom’s competence and medical condition is scheduled for Monday, court records show.

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