Mother Who Allegedly Decapitated Her Son Admitted Killing to 911 Dispatcher
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Zahree Thomas and his mother Chevonne Thomas are shown in these undated photos. (WABC/ABC News)(CAMDEN, N.J.) — A New Jersey woman who allegedly decapitated her son and placed his head in the freezer admitted that she had killed him to a 911 dispatcher moments before she stabbed herself to death.
Chevonne Thomas, 33, initially blamed her boyfriend for the killing of Zahree, 2, when she called 911 early Wednesday, but quickly recanted and said she was responsible for the death that took place in her Camden, N.J., home.
“You know what, I did it, I’m lying, I’m lying, I’m lying, I did it,” Thomas said in the call to emergency dispatch that was released Wednesday night.
“I did it, I did it, I did it,” she repeated later.
Later on the call, which lasted about six minutes, Thomas admitted that she was on the antidepressant Prozac, but had not taken the medication the day she and her son died.
“I still take it. I didn’t take it today, but I should have,” she said on the call.
Police responding after the call found the body of Zahree on the first floor of the home, and later the boy’s head in the freezer. A chest stab wound and marks on the child’s arms were found by a medical examiner, Jason Laughlin, spokesman for the Camden County prosecutor’s office, said.
From downstairs, police officers heard Thomas still on the phone with the 911 dispatch and, Laughlin said, communicated with her briefly. A second set of officers entered the home via a second-story window, but were unable to reach her before she stabbed herself in the throat, Laughlin said.
As an infant in 2010, Zahree was taken away from Thomas because she left him alone in a car after she took drugs and passed out in a nearby park, Laughlin said. She had smoked marijuana laced with the hallucinogenic drug PCP, Laughlin said she told hospital officials.
A friend and neighbor found the boy and took him from the car, and Thomas was taken to the hospital. Thomas was charged with child endangerment in 2010, but the case was dropped because a year later the friend who had taken the boy from Thomas’ vehicle said that Thomas had given her the child through a clear transfer of custody, Laughlin said.
Tayari Horcey, a neighbor of Thomas who shared the same landlord, was one of the last people to see her and Zahree alive. She told ABC News that she would frequently chat with Thomas, and that nothing seemed unusual when she saw Thomas for the final time before she and her son died.
“She was sitting in the doorway being her usual self, quite, at 12 in the afternoon,” Horcey said. “She was blowing bubbles with her son.
“The last time I saw her was at 10:30 at night. She was by herself at that point.”
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