Mother confessed to stabbing her children, police say

A mother was arrested after stabbing her son and daughter to death in the city's Point Breeze section late Wednesday afternoon, police said.

An 8-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl were pronounced dead by medics at 5:25 p.m. inside a first-floor apartment in the 1700 block of South 18th Street, police said.

Chief Inspector Scott Small said the 27-year-old woman, whom police did not identify Wednesday evening, had confessed. She told police she had stabbed her children, and she was "acting irrationally," Small said.

Small said police took the mother to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania for a psychiatric evaluation. Doctors will determine whether she was under the influence of medications or other substances, Small said.

Police responded to the apartment shortly after 5 p.m. after receiving calls about a disturbance and a person with a weapon.

The children were found in their bedroom, Small said. They had been stabbed repeatedly in the chest, though it was unclear whether they had been killed in the bedroom. Homicide detectives and crime-scene officers were still examining the house Wednesday night.

A knife found in the apartment might have been the weapon used to kill the children, police said.

Police said the children's maternal grandparents also lived in the apartment. The grandmother was in the apartment when police arrived and was being questioned by homicide detectives, Small said.

Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey visited the crime scene Wednesday night.

Chea Meas, 43, a social worker, said that the family was from Cambodia and that the mother and children had come to the United States about a year and a half ago.

Meas said he met the children's grandfather, Man Mao, five years ago after Mao obtained political asylum in the United States. The rest of Mao's family was later allowed to join him.

Meas said he had met the mother and children a few times and nothing seemed amiss.

"She very normal. I don't expect to be killing," he said. The children were "very polite," he said.

The family had moved to 18th Street in the last year or so, neighbors said.

Meas said the grandfather had called him last week about enrolling the children into a neighborhood school.