'Voices' told mother to drown kids

Oakland Tribune, May 24, 2006 by Cecily Burt, STAFF WRITER

SAN FRANCISCO -- The defense attorney for the Oakland woman who allegedly threw her three small children to their deaths into San Francisco Bay seven months ago mounted an unusual defense for her client Tuesday to try and reduce the murder charges and save her from facing the death penalty.

On Oct. 19, Lashuan Harris, 23, heard voices from God telling her to sacrifice her children -- Taronta Greely, 2, Joshoa Greely, 16 months, and Treyshun Harris, 6 -- by undressing them and lowering them over the railing of Pier 7 and into the chilly dark water, said Teresa Caffese, chief attorney with the San Francisco Public Defender's office. Taronta's body was recovered later that night; the other two have never been found.

Harris suffers from schizophrenia and should be committed to a mental institution, not prison, or worse, death row, Caffese said.

Normally the preliminary hearing is a time for the prosecution to make its case for holding the accused over for trial. It is unusual for the defense to call any witnesses. But Caffese said it was her duty to try to protect her client, who she said is schizophrenic and was not in control of her actions that night.

She called several witnesses who saw Harris both with her children and after they were gone to share what they observed. The defense witnesses were interspersed with testimony by law enforcement officers who were called by the prosecution.

"The evidence is undisputed," Caffese said last week. "I want the judge to hear she was delusional."

Harris has been charged with murder with special circumstances, which could qualify her for the death penalty if convicted. San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris has not ruled that out. Assistant District Attorney Linda Allen represented the prosecution Tuesday, with Superior Court Judge Teri L. Jackson presiding.

Katherine Spring of San Antonio, Texas, a mother of three, recalled how she was in town on a business trip. She spoke of leaving the Hyatt Regency hotel and going for a jog along the Embarcadero late that afternoon and seeing a mother with three children.

"There were three kids, one in a baby stroller and two children sort of hanging on to the sides of the stroller," Spring recalled. "They were extremely happy, laughing, and they were pointing at things, looking at things. For a second I had eye contact with the oldest child. He was a beautiful child."

What made you pause, Caffese asked her.

"It struck me that she was pushing all three on the stroller, which I thought would be hard to do," Spring said. "They were extremely well-behaved, laughing, very compact, staying with her. They were just very good kids. Mine would have been running all over."

Spring said she kept expecting to catch the mother's eye, but the woman stared straight ahead, "almost like she was in a trance."

Harris, dressed for court in a powder blue jacket and slacks and white blouse, short hair neatly curled, looked very different from the zombie-like, and later agitated woman witnesses reported seeing that night. They described a woman who was unkempt, wearing ratty clothes and seemingly unaware of other people.

She and the children, who appeared happy, lively, clean and well- dressed in red and blue striped shirts, didn't seem to belong together, said Timothy Moran of Cleveland, Ohio.

Moran was also in town on business and decided to take a walk to the end of the pier to take in the sights after his meeting ended about 4:30 p.m. He saw a woman sitting on a bench, gazing at the water, occasionally looking from side to side as if she were waiting for someone.

"One of the children came up to the railing and said hello to me and I said hello," Moran recalled. "He picked something up, a wrapper or something and threw it in the water. At that point, the mother called the child over to her.

"The older child repeated that he wanted to go home; they were all wearing T-shirts and at that time of day it was getting colder," Moran recalled. "They were clearly uncomfortable so I wondered why she didn't take them home. She didn't move from the bench, but she said something like, 'OK, OK.'"

None of the witnesses who testified Tuesday saw Harris throw her children into the Bay, but Katherine Ross apparently came upon her not long after. Like the other witnesses she was in town on business and had decided to take a walk and snap some pictures after her meeting ended. She walked over to the Ferry Building about 5 p.m. and then down to Pier 7.

As she walked down the pier she noticed a woman a little farther ahead pacing rapidly back and forth, hands tightly clenched behind her back. There was an empty stroller and what looked to be clothes or material scattered about.

"I formed an impression of someone who was agitated, distressed ... out of synch with the rest of the environment," Ross said.

"My impression, it was a pretty pedestrian pier where you would go and have a peaceful moment, but she didn't seem to be taking in the sights," Ross said.

Ross, who has experience in her work with people diagnosed with schizophrenia, said something didn't look right about the woman and she decided not to walk any farther down the pier.