carulus hines
Carulus Hines Shot to Death by Police After Found Repeatedly Stabbing Daughter (Facebook)


Many in the Carver Hills neighborhood knew Ms. Carulus Hines and her children had no water and were on the brink of being homeless.

They knew the woman claimed to speak to her dead dad and said she was possessed by demons.

Still no one expected what happened Monday afternoon in the green and yellow home on Abner Place.

No one expected the troubled woman to throw her 8-year-old boy out the window and to fatally stab her 4-year-old daughter.

No one expected the woman to snap. And police on Tuesday were still trying to find out why.

When officers received the call about the 8-year-old boy and arrived at the home at 2387 Abner Place they discovered the woman had done far worse.

Ms. Hines had covered the mouth of her daughter with tape and stabbed her to death just before officers broke down the door to her rented home.

"They witnessed the mother sitting in a chair, stabbing the child," Atlanta police spokesman Mr. Carlos Campos said. "The two officers drew their service weapons, and issued an order for the woman to immediately drop the knife. When she did not, they discharged their service weapons several times, fatally wounding the woman."

Ms. Hines, 40, died of multiple gunshot wounds to the torso and lower limbs, the Fulton County Medical Examiner's Office said Tuesday.

Nalecia, who would have turned 5 years old next month, died of suffocation and multiple stab wounds, the chief examiner Dr. Randy Hanzlick said. She had no gunshot wounds, he said.

The 8-year-old and his uncle, who lived with the family, were the ones who called police from a neighbors' house.

The boy and his uncle told the neighbor that Ms. Hines had claimed to be God, capable of killing the boy and then bringing him back, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Neighbors said she spoke of being possessed by demons and could be heard calling out the name of Jesus and speaking in tongues behind her home.

Mr. Hines told a neighbor his sister was acting erratic Monday and had a knife. When she started swinging the knife, her tried to protect the children, the paper reported. But when he ran next door to call for help, she threw her son out a window. He took the boy to the neighbor's, and when he went back to the home, the door was locked.

And by the time officers arrived and kicked down the door, it was too late.

Residents said Ms. Carulus had extreme financial trouble and would go next door to another neighbor's home to get drinking water and wash clothes and cook, according to media reports. She was also six months behind on her $600 a month rent.

Neighbor Charles Harris told 11 Alive News that Ms. Carulus spoke of being possessed.

"I think she just snapped," he said. "'Cause she was by my house [Sunday] around 9:30 saying nine demons come out of her. Nine demons. [She said] that she had been possessed."

Another neighbors said he saw the woman walking down the road with her eyes closed, claiming her dead father told her to do it, according to media reports.

The woman's landlady, Ms. Miyoshi Hill, in tears, told the news station she had been letting the family live in the house rent-free.

"Yeah, because of her kids, I just couldn't put her out," she said. "Her daughter was a disabled child. She has Down's Syndrome... Things were just really hard for her, I guess."

But a few weeks earlier she told the woman she couldn't let her continue staying for free and for the first time, Ms. Hill said she saw the woman get belligerent.

Now Ms. Hill said she grieves for the children.

She said Nalecia would run up and hug her every time she visited. "She was very loving," she said.

And Nalecia's brother acted as her protector. "Her brother really loved her. His mother told him to always look out for his little sister."

After the deaths, she said, he told his uncle he had failed.