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Last updated on Tuesday, March 6, 2012
(FRANKLIN)(RTV6) - Disturbing details emerged Monday in the killing of a 3-year-old boy.
Amanda Smith, 33, was formally charged with murder in the drowning death of her 3-year-old son, Jacob Smith, and attempted murder in a confrontation with police on the day of the boy's death.
According to a probable cause affidavit, Smith told officers that she "sent her baby to heaven, where he needed to be."
"I was afraid for him. I couldn't imagine anything good coming out of his life," police quoted Smith as saying. "I thought he was better with God than here."
Smith had battled severe mental problems, but Johnson County Circuit Court Judge Mark Loyd allowed her to have unsupervised visits with her son once a week.
Court documents indicated that Smith told police she had given the boy a bath and let him play in the tub.
"I gently leaned him back and pushed his face into the water and held him down," police quoted Smith as saying. "I wanted to save him from any of the horrible things that might happen to him in the future."
Smith told investigators that she made an impulse decision to drown her son, deciding she would do so in the bath about 30 minutes to an hour beforehand, court documents indicated.
"He didn't struggle or fight. He didn't cry," police quoted Smith as saying. "If he had showed me he wanted his life, I wouldn't have taken it."
Investigators said Smith had called police agencies in Johnson County more than 200 times in the last year, including 11 times over the weekend before her son's death.
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