BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. — Jessica McCarty was arrested in March on charges she killed her three children, telling detectives they deserved to die.
If she goes to trial she could face the death penalty, but next week she is expected to take a plea deal that would take death off the table and put her in prison for life.
McCarty was arrested by Palm Bay police on March 20 after she called 911 to tell police she had killed her children and slit her wrists.
Raw: Takedown of mother accused of killing children
Photos: Evidence markers, images of home | Vigil for children | McCarty and Swist children
The 911 dispatcher pleaded with McCarty to stay on the phone but the woman refused.
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” she said. “I want to call my mom and tell her I love her and say goodbye.”
When police arrived at her Kenmore Street home, they used non-lethal beanbags to subdue her as she tried to kill herself.
They found her two sons – 5-month-old Christopher Swist and 6-year-old Phillip McCarty – with cords around their necks. It appears her daughter, Lacey McCarty, 7, was drowned in the bathtub, court documents said.
Jessica McCarty was expecting to die that day.
“I just lost my children,” she told detectives. “I wish I would have finished the job.”
She went on to say that her children deserved to die and that her whole family is destroyed, documents said.
“Someone who killed their kids doesn’t deserve to live,” she told investigators. “Just give me the death penalty – right here, right now.”
It is not unusual in a case like this one for the state attorney’s office to ultimately take death off the table and offer a plea to either a long-term prison sentence or life in prison without the possibility of parole, said WFTV legal analyst Bill Sheaffer.
Lacey and Phillip's father, who was not named, said he was OK with the idea of Jessica McCarty taking a plea.
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Palm Bay woman accused of killing 3 children indicted on murder charges
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Charges for mother accused of killing children expected to be upgraded
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