Tired of ads? Subscribers enjoy a distraction-free reading experience.
Click here to subscribe today or Login.

PITTSBURGH (AP) — A judge has set a new trial date for a western Pennsylvania woman charged with drowning her two young sons in a bathtub.

Forty-two-year-old Laurel Schlemmer is now scheduled for trial June 21. Allegheny County Judge Jeffrey Manning set the new date at a status conference on Thursday.

According to police, the 42-year-old McCandless woman told officers she heard “crazy voices” before she held her 6-year-old son, Daniel, and his 3-year-old brother, Luke, under water on April 1, 2014. Luke died that day and Daniel died a few days later.

Police say Schlemmer told them she could be a better mother her third, and oldest, son “if the other two boys weren’t around and they would be better off in heaven.

Her attorney is pursuing a mental health defense.