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Miami Herald
Miami Herald
National
Charles Rabin and David Ovalle

‘I don’t want them anymore,’ mother told Miami cops. They found her kids, 3 and 5, dead

MIAMI — Odette Joassaint called 911 repeatedly, sounding agitated and incoherent, unable to explain why she was calling. It became horribly clear when Miami police officers arrived. “Come get them, I don’t want them anymore,” she told officers, according to a police report.

When police rushed inside her Little River apartment Tuesday night, they found Joassaint’s own children — Jeffrey and Laural Belval, just 3 and 5 years old — hog-tied and strangled. The heart-breaking discovery shook even veteran officers and homicide detectives.

By Wednesday, Joassaint, 41, had been charged with two counts of first-degree murder and had been ordered held without bond in her first appearance in Miami-Dade Court. Joassaint, who wore a padded gown designed to prevent suicide, said nothing during the brief proceeding.

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