Defense: Mom heard voices urging her to kill

CLEVELAND (AP) — A woman charged with drowning her two young daughters in a bathtub was depressed and heard voices urging her to kill, a defense attorney said Tuesday during the start of her trial.

Amber Hill, 23, who has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, had been increasingly troubled leading up to the deaths of her daughters Oct. 1, 2007, her lawyer, Fernando Mack, said.

“The voices would say, ‘Do it, do it!’” he told a three-judge panel hearing the case in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court.

Mack said medical experts will testify that Hill was insane.

Hill is charged with aggravated murder in the deaths of Janelle Cintron, 4, and Cecess Hill, 2.

Police said Hill called the girls’ father the day they died and told him that the children “are at peace.” Jamie Cintron went to the Cleveland apartment where the family lived and pulled his daughters from the water in the bathtub.

Authorities haven’t offered a motive for the killings. They said Hill had no history of neglecting the girls.

Assistant Prosecutor Ronni Ducoff told the judges that, the day before the children died, Hill had a normal day at home and cooked dinner for the family.

“She told detectives that she loved her daughters, but that she felt confined in her life and the kids were part of it,” Ducoff said.

Hill, wearing a pale green suit and pink blouse, was calm and jotted down a few notes as her trial began before judges John Sutula, Nancy Fuerst and Jose Villanueva.

She remained calm as the first witness, forensic pathologist Elizabeth Balraj, testified about how the girls drowned.

Balraj said there was evidence when examining Janelle’s neck that there had been an attempt to strangle her. She said the girl likely was choked before she drowned.

Ducoff said testimony will show that Hill was calm when she went to a pay telephone near the apartment to tell Cintron the children were at peace, and that she sat calmly on a sofa when he rushed home to look for the girls.

Mack said there was no prior calculation to kill, an element needed to prove aggravated murder. He said Hill was mentally ill and in a daze when the killings happened.

Her mother, concerned about Hill’s mental health, had made an appointment for that afternoon for Hill to see a mental health therapist at Cleveland’s MetroHealth Medical Center, Mack said.

“By doing what she did, she thought she was doing this to herself,” he said.