Cheverly Mom Who Suffocated Children Apologizes In Court

CHEVERLY, MD — A Prince George’s County woman who pleaded guilty to suffocating her two young children by putting plastic bags over their heads and taping them close, has been sentenced to 45 years in prison. Sonya Spoon, 26, tearfully apologized to her dead children in court Wednesday.

Prince George’s County Police were called to Spoon's Cheverly home in the 6200 block of Forest Road on Sept. 7, 2014, for a report of two unconscious children, Patch previously reported. The children, Ayden Spoon, 1, and Kayla Thompson, 3, were rushed to a local hospital, where both were pronounced dead. Recordings of a 911 call between Pavi Spoon, Sonya Spoon’s mother, released by police show she and Sonya Spoon were performing CPR on the children, Patch reports.

Spoon told Judge Lawrence V. Hill that her actions were horribly wrong, and added: “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” reports WTOP.

Pavi Spoon said her daughter has a history of mental illness, but has not received an official diagnosis. Sonya Spoon is now on medication, she said. The young mother's attorney, Mirriam Seddiq, criticized a lack of action by mental health professionals and social services who know Sonya Spoon had threatened to harm her children and herself before the children’s killings.

“And so people knew, doctors knew, the danger these children were in,” Seddiq said. “They knew the danger she was in. She was suicidal, she was homicidal.”

Sonya Spoon reportedly admitted on scene to suffocating her children, police say, and was arrested. In late September 2014, the Prince George’s County Department of Corrections moved Spoon to the Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center in Jessup because it would be a “better fit,” an official said.

Also known as Maryland’s forensic psychiatric hospital, the location is said to be a maximum security facility, according to the website. Hill ordered Spoon to be sent to the facility for her sentence.

»Sonya Spoon of Cheverly; Credit: Prince George’s County Police Department