The Latest: Boy drowns after mom tried to drown him in 2008
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The Latest on a California woman accused of killing her 12-year-old son and seriously injuring her 7-year-old son (all times local):
4:20 p.m.
More than a decade after a woman was prosecuted in Montana for trying to drown her baby son in a river, she's accused of killing the now 12-year-old by drowning him in an irrigation ditch in California.
Officials in Tulare County, California, said Monday that an autopsy found Jackson Telnas died Saturday of drowning.
His 7-year-old brother is hospitalized in critical condition after being found in the same irrigation ditch.
Deputies responded to a 911 call reporting Sherri Telnas was acting strangely and had taken her sons to a cornfield across from their rural home in central California.
Telnas was sentenced to 10 years under Montana health officials' oversight for trying to drown her baby in a Montana river in 2008. She was later granted custody of the boy.
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2:15 p.m.
A woman who was prosecuted in Montana for attempting to drown her 10-month-old son in 2008 has been arrested in California charged with killing the now 12-year-old boy and seriously injuring his 7-year-old brother.
The Tulare County Sheriff's office received a 911 call Saturday to report that 45-year-old Sherri Telnas was acting strangely and had taken her sons to a corn field across from their rural home in Porterville.
Deputies said they found the children unresponsive in a ditch. The older boy died at a hospital. The younger one was in critical condition. No other details were released.
Public records show Telnas was sentenced in 2009 to 10 years under the custody of Montana's human services department for trying to drown her then 10-month-old son. And that she was released from supervision in 2016.
It wasn't clear if Telnas has an attorney.
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This story has been corrected to show Telnas was sentenced to 10 years under the custody of Montana's human services department, not 20 years.
