Los Angeles mom who killed her two young children was legally insane, court finds

James Queally, Los Angeles Times on Jun 17, 2026

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LOS ANGELES — A judge has ruled that a Los Angeles mother was insane at the time she killed her 7-year-old daughter and newborn baby in 2017, according to medical reports made public in court Tuesday.

The ruling means the woman will not stand trial for the killings and will be sent to a state mental institution rather than prison.

In a downtown courtroom Tuesday morning, Jasmine Hickman, 35, admitted to the two slayings before Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge George Lomeli ordered her held in a state hospital.

“I know if I had been in my right mind I would have never done what I did,” Hickman told the judge, according to City News Service.

On Oct. 19, 2017, Hickman was seen in the street, breastfeeding her newborn daughter, Kamile, while walking with her eldest child, 7-year-old, Jaliya. All three were naked and covered in talcum powder, according to court documents. Hickman and her daughters were later found unconscious in a nearby parking lot. Both girls had been suffocated to death.

In court Tuesday, Hickman pleaded guilty to both killings before Lomeli determined she was legally insane at the time of the murders, according to a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office. She was diagnosed with schizaoaffective disorder, records show.

The case was one of several in recent years to raise serious concerns about the way the L.A. County Department of Children and Family Services handles reports of abuse and neglect.

According to a whistleblower lawsuit filed by a former county social worker, Dennis Finn, both the victims’ grandmother and Hickman’s landlord had called a county hotline and said the woman was acting erratically in the days before the girls’ deaths. None of the calls were “properly evaluated, recorded, or acted upon,” according to Finn’s lawsuit.

A social worker wanted to recommend more immediate intervention in the case, according to Finn’s suit, but a supervisor at the county’s child welfare agency overruled the employee and downgraded the response “despite two prior calls, a 911 call and a supposed police visit.”

Finn alleged he was wrongfully terminated for providing records regarding the Hickman case to state investigators concerned about the county’s handling of such incidents. The county later settled his lawsuit for $1.85 million.