Volusia County Sheriff's Department
Ebony Wilkerson, 32, has been charged with three counts of attempted first-degree murder after she intentionally drove her minivan into the Atlantic Ocean and tried to kill her three children.
The pregnant mother who wildly drove her three children into the surf at a Florida beach was booked on a slew of charges that included attempted murder and child abuse, authorities said.
Ebony Wilkerson, 32, was arrested after her release Friday from a local hospital, where she has been under evaluation since the apparent murder-suicide bid at Daytona Beach, authorities said.
Volusia County Sheriff Ben Johnson told reporters that Wilkerson was cuffed after several interviews with the woman's children - ages 10, 9 and 3 - and several witnesses.
"She actually told them to close their eyes and go to sleep, 'I'm taking you to a better place,'" Johnson said. "The fact that she did intentionally try to kill the children...this is a tragic event."
Wilkerson, who is nearly seven months pregnant, was driving erratically along the shoreline near Silver Beach Ave. when she suddenly veered into the ocean on Tuesday.
"Her son was actually trying to fight her for the steering wheel," Johnson said.
As soon as the minivan plunged into the water, a group of lifeguards rushed into the water and braved the rolling waves to pluck the screaming kids from the abandoned van.
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"The two in the backseat was crying with their arms out, saying: 'Our mommy's trying to kill us, please help,'" Tim Tesseneer, who helped rescue the wailing children, told WESH-TV.
The terrifying ordeal happened just moments after Wilkerson, who was visiting from South Carolina, was pulled over by police - who tracked the woman down after a frantic call from her sister, authorities said.
The sister told the 911 dispatcher that Wilkerson wigged out inside her Daytona Beach home before putting her kids in the minivan and speeding away.
"She's talking about Jesus, that there's demons in the house," the sister told the operator, according to a recording of the call obtained by WESH-TV.
"She's got the kids in the car with her."
Police they pulled her over a short time later, but because the woman showed no signs of causing harm to herself or anyone else, the officers had no reasonable cause to take her into custody, Johnson said.
Soon after Wilkerson was allowed to get back on the road, she drove her van into the ocean.
The wild-eyed mother managed to hop out of the van and tried to stop the lifeguards from rescuing her children, Johnson said.
Wilkerson was taken to a hospital, where she underwent a psychiatric evaluation. Her children were placed temporarily with the Florida Department of Children and Families.
Officials with the agency are working with the South Carolina Department of Social Services, which is investigating any possible abuse history in the family.
Johnson said the father of the children has yet to show up to talk to investigators, but the mother has calmly denied the charges.
"She's denying that she was trying to harm the children," said Johnson, adding that the woman had been "very calm and collected" during her interviews.
Investigators found no evidence of any prior mental illness history, Johnson said. But it was not immediately clear if alcohol or drugs were involved.
Wilkerson was scheduled to appear in court on Saturday.
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Johnson said it was important to make sure the charges were enough to keep her in jail for a long time.
"We're going to make sure this doesn't happen again involving these children," he said.
The arrest came after it was revealed that Wilkerson had been involved in another deadly accident.
Court records obtained by The Post and Courier show that Wilkerson was connected to a fatal car accident in Delray Beach in 2007.
Wilkerson was cited for making an improper lane change - which caused another car to crash into a concrete barrier, the paper reported on Friday.
The car's passenger, 35-year-old Jennifer Krane, died from her injuries two weeks later.
With News Wire Services
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