Doctor calls slain mother abusive

The doctor wrote to her siblings and said she was sorry for what she did.
CINCINNATI (AP) -- A pediatrician charged with aggravated murder in the death of her mother told police that she was trying to protect her younger siblings from their mother's abuse.
Malar Balasubramanian first tried to kill her mother by putting 35 Xanax pills in her milkshake, and when that didn't work, she tried to suffocate her and then strangled her, police in the Cincinnati suburb of Blue Ash said. Xanax is an anti-anxiety medication.
Balasubramanian told her adult brother and sister in an e-mail that she'd decided to kill herself, but that she didn't want to leave them alone with their mother, Saroja Balasubramanian, 53. She told them in the e-mail that she was sorry for what she did to their mother, according to a search warrant police filed Friday.
"But I'm glad she's not here to hurt us anymore," wrote Balasubramanian, 28, who was indicted Friday on the aggravated murder charge.
If convicted, she faces 20 years to life in prison, said Anne Flanagan, an assistant Hamilton County prosecutor. The cause of Saroja Balasubramanian's death has not been released.
Doctor's condition
Balasubramanian remained in Bethesda North Hospital on Friday. She has been there since Wednesday morning, when police found her on a road clad in a T-shirt and underwear. Police have said that she is being treated for overmedicating herself. Flanagan said that there was no indication of a severe mental disease or defect.
Balasubramanian told police that she strangled her mother July 25 at their Blue Ash home and had to build a ramp with bags of mulch to get the body into a car in the garage, according to the search warrant. The car, with the body in it, was found Wednesday in a parking lot near the site where they found the pediatrician.
Balasubramanian graduated from Case Western Reserve University's medical school in Cleveland in 2001 and served her residency at Children's Hospital in Pittsburgh. She returned to Blue Ash a few weeks ago from India, where she had been practicing medicine.
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