JONES COUNTY, MISSISSIPPI: Latina Marie Oates, an Ohio mother who thought her 11-year-old son was a “demon,” beat him to death in Mississippi in the bathroom of a hotel with an “ancient dagger,” which was nothing more than a metal bar.
Latina Marie Oates, 36, then stabbed the rod through the back of the sixth grader’s head in the presence of his two younger brothers.
On Thursday, September 28, a jury in Jones County, Mississippi, found Oates guilty of one count of capital murder in the horrific death of young Joshua Oates. Following some deliberation, Circuit Court Judge Dal Williamson ordered the delusional woman to serve a sentence of life in a state correctional facility without the possibility of parole.
Jurors rejected the possibility of finding Oates not guilty by reason of insanity and not guilty but not restored and still presenting a danger to society.
What did Oates’ defense attorneys say?
Oates’ defense attorneys, throughout the trial, said that she was in the midst of a psychotic break when she took the life of her son. Earlier in the week, a forensic psychologist testified for the defense that she was unaware what she was doing was wrong at the time, as per the report of the Laurel Leader-Call.
What did Latina Marie Oates do before the crime?
Dr Robert Storer reportedly told jurors about his conversations with the mother on the night of the attack. He testified that just before committing the crime, Oates said she went to her car and smoked a cigarette or marijuana, then grabbed a backpack from her car which held the metal pipe.
She carried the pipe from Ohio, believing that it was an “ancient dagger.”
She said that she then went back into the hotel room bathroom where she reportedly filled the tub with water, then tossed in a piece of toilet paper she used to wipe herself, which she believed converted the water into “holy water.”
Latina Marie Oates thought her son 'was not human anymore'
Oates reportedly told Storer she then went to attack Joshua while he was in bed, saying the boy’s “eyes were red, he was growling, he was not human anymore.” Initially, she tried to stab her son in the heart but she said he woke up before she could plunge the makeshift dagger through his chest.
She then dragged him into the bathroom, breaking her rosary in the process, which she believed indicated “there was a demon in the room” and then “pushed him under the water” and killed him, according to the outlet.
Joshua suffered more than 60 wounds
The boy died from the brutal attack, suffering more than 60 wounds and the defendant's two other sons told authorities they heard Joshua pleading with his mother and saying, “Why are you doing this?”, per Law and Crime.
When was Latina Marie Oates arrested?
Oates was arrested in March 2020 after she took her three children from their Ohio home and drove to Mississippi without telling her husband where they were going. On March 17 of the same year she was spotted on surveillance footage with her two younger children leaving the Hampton Inn in Laurel.
Authorities discovered Joshua’s body inside their room shortly after they departed from their hotel and issued an arrest warrant for Oates. She was later arrested in New Orleans.
During the trial, Oates’ husband testified that his wife took their two surviving kids to New Orleans because of Marie Laveau, a famous woman practitioner of voodoo in the 1800s who lived in the city, as per The Colombus Dispatch.
