Mom not guilty by reason of insanity

Amber Hill could have faced the death penalty if convicted.

CLEVELAND (AP) — A mother charged with aggravated murder in the bathtub drownings of her two daughters was found not guilty by reason of insanity Friday and faces a hearing to determine if she should be institutionalized.

A three-judge panel in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court determined Amber Hill, 23, suffered from a severe mental disorder on Oct. 1, 2007, and did not know it was wrong to kill her children, Janelle, 4, and Cecess, 2.

“The court concludes she did not know the wrongfulness of her horrific acts,” said Judge John Sutula.

Hill could have faced the death penalty if convicted. She has been jailed since the day of deaths and was ordered to remain in jail, pending a civil commitment hearing on whether she should be hospitalized by court order. A hearing date was not immediately sent.

“These killings shock the conscience of every person, including the family,” Sutula said as he announced the unanimous verdict.

But he said evidence from both the court’s forensic psychiatrist and a clinical psychologist obtained by the defense concluded that Hill had suffered from “a major depressive disorder with psychotic features.”

Assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Mark Mahoney said the state believes Hill should be hospitalized

“We will argue she is a danger to herself and others and that she be committed to a psychiatric institution,” he said.

As the verdict was announced, Hill, wearing a pale green suit and pink blouse, sat calmly at the defense table and showed no emotion.

“I just want to thank God. Now my daughter can get some help,” said Hill’s mother, Carolyn Hutchins, while weeping after the verdict.

Hutchins had testified that she wanted to take her daughter to a Cleveland hospital for mental health counseling before the children died.

Defense lawyers did not dispute that Hill drowned the girls at the Cleveland apartment where they lived.

During the trial’s opening statements, defense attorney Fernando Mack said Hill heard voices telling her to “do it, do it” on the day the children died.

Mack said Hill has since been medicated and is functioning well. He said she now has “more insight” into what she did to her daughters.

“She was a good mother,” said the defense attorney Myron Watson. “She cared for those children. Those children were the center of her life.”

Police said Hill called the girls’ father, Jamie Cintron, at his job the day they died and told him that the children were “at peace.” Cintron rushed home and pulled his daughters from the water in the bathtub.

A forensic pathologist in the Cuyahoga County coroner’s office had testified that marks on the older girl’s neck indicate she may have struggled and was strangled.

Assistant Prosecutor Ronni Ducoff had argued that the day before the children died Hill had a normal day at home and cooked dinner for the family. After the deaths, he said, Hill told Cleveland police detectives that she loved her daughters but that she felt confined in her life.