Police took a New York City woman into custody on Saturday, November 26, for allegedly murdering her two children, after cops found the two toddlers underneath a pile of clothes in the woman’s Bronx homeless shelter apartment.

Dimone Fleming, 22, is accused of murdering her 11-month-old and 3-year-old sons.

New York City Police Department (NYPD) officers responded to a 911 call after a smoke alarm sounded in the apartment at a Mount Hope homeless shelter. When they arrived, at around 7:20 pm, they found Fleming in an agitated state, naked, ranting and burning objects in her kitchen. 

The small, cluttered apartment was searched, and police found water on the bathroom floor and a bathtub filled with clothes. The officers were told by a neighbor that the woman’s children were with their father, away from the apartment, so they did not inspect the bathtub. 

Unaware that the children were in the bathtub, police sent Fleming to a local hospital for psychiatric observation. 

After the police left, at about 8 pm, the boys’ father, Columbus Canada, who had been sleeping outside in his car, entered the apartment and discovered his sons’ bodies in the bathtub. He screamed for help and neighbors called 911.

NYPD officers found the boys with stab wounds in their chests and necks. The children were identified as three-year-old Deshawn Fleming and 11-month-old Octavius Canada.

According to the police, during their initial visit, there was nothing to suggest the mom murdered the boys in the apartment or hid them under a pile of clothes in the bathtub, as there was no evidence of blood in the apartment.

Fleming’s boyfriend, Canada, told the police that he had a heated argument with Fleming the night before, but remained outside in his car on Friday night. He said he entered the apartment on Saturday night after a friend told him that police had been there and had taken Fleming away to a hospital. 

A neighbor told the cops that she had seen Fleming outside earlier in the day, walking back and forth with her hands at the back of her head, repeating, “What did I do?”

Police have evidence that the woman believed her children were possessed by the devil. One of the children’s aunts said that Fleming had been obsessed with demons, and was afraid of her children because she thought they were possessed.

Before allegedly killing her sons, Fleming posted on Facebook asking for mercy for her sins and saying she was leaving everything that no longer served her.

The police also revealed that Fleming had been visited by a child welfare agency in NYC after she gave birth to her first child, because of accusations that she was not caring for him properly.

It was reported after media delved into the case, that Dimone Fleming was named in a Pennsylvania arrest warrant in 2018 due to charges of child pornography and the dissemination of images of child sex acts. Fleming, then 18, had allegedly sent a photo of her naked 15-year-old boyfriend to his mother. Fleming moved to Florida after the warrant was issued and the case is still open. 

Canada, who is the father of the younger slain child, said that he believes Fleming was possessed herself but was a good mother.

Fleming’s father told the media that he had spoken to his daughter hours before the murders, and she said she felt “smothered” by her relationship with Canada.

The cause of the death of the children is being investigated.