Mom of decapitated baby: 'I didn't mean to do it'

[July 30, 2009]  SAN ANTONIO (AP) -- A Texas mother accused of decapitating her 3-week-old son screams "I didn't mean to do it. He told me to!" while her sister pleads for an ambulance to bring help in a desperate four-minute 911 call released Wednesday.

Otty Sanchez, who police say told them the devil made her kill and mutilate her only child, cries "I love him" and says she's stabbed herself in the heart and stomach while her sister tries calming down the 33-year-old mother.

At one point during the frantic call, Priscilla Garcia tries reassuring her sister that she is alive. "Otty, this time I told you to come to me," Garcia says.

"I tried, but you told me that you died," Sanchez responds.

"I'm not dead, Otty," Garcia says. "I'm standing right here talking to you."

Sanchez, 33, is charged with capital murder in the slaying of Scott Wesley Buchholz-Sanchez, who authorities found decapitated and grossly mutilated in a bedroom of her sister's house early Sunday. Police say Sanchez chewed off three of her infant's toes and ate parts of the brain. She used a knife and two swords in the attack, according to police.

Garcia tells the dispatcher that her sister has stabbed her child and that blood is all over the bed.

"She's gone crazy last night. She was hearing voices," Garcia says. "She kept bringing me the baby. And finally she calmed down and I took her back the baby. And now I just woke up to hear screaming."

She continues, "The baby is dead. The baby's dead. Please, somebody come."

During the call, the dispatcher instructs Garcia not to touch the baby or anything in the area. The call ends with the dispatcher saying help is on the way.

Sanchez, who had been hospitalized after the killing, was being held on $1 million bond at the Bexar County jail. It was not immediately clear Wednesday whether she had an attorney.

Scott W. Buchholz, the infant's father, said Sanchez suffered from postpartum depression and that she told him she was schizophrenic a week before the slaying. Buchholz, who said he also is schizophrenic, said he wants her to receive the death penalty.

A family member has said Sanchez had been undergoing psychiatric treatment and that a hospital called looking for her several months ago. Gloria Sanchez, the mother's aunt, said her niece had been "in and out of a psychiatric ward."

In May 2008, Otty Sanchez's mother, Manuela Sanchez, called police after her daughter didn't return from a trip to Austin, saying she was concerned about her daughter's safety. Manuela Sanchez told police she suspected her daughter was into drugs and specifically told police she wasn't suffering from any mental issues.

Buchholz last saw Sanchez and his son the day before the killing. He said Sanchez had moved in with her parents a week earlier, leaving him July 20 after being briefly hospitalized for depression but released that same day.

Sanchez brought "Baby Scotty" over to see his father the day before the slaying, and Buchholz said she became irate when he asked for copies of the birth certificate and other documents, then left in a huff with the baby.

Priscilla Garcia called 911 before 5 a.m. the next morning. Police say the killing took place in a bedroom and that no one else was injured.

[Associated Press; By PAUL J. WEBER]

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