A woman from New Jersey has been charged with murdering her two daughters by drugging them at a home in Phoenix, police said.
Retta Renee Cruse, a 35-year-old woman originally from Pleasantville, was charged Tuesday in Phoenix with two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of 4-year-old Royal McIntyre and 9-year-old Aleyah McIntyre, the Arizona Republic reported.
The girls were discovered dead in bed on Sept. 8 with no apparent signs of trauma, but arrest records obtained by the newspaper suggest Cruse used medications to “sedate and overdose” her young daughters.
A prescribed medication that matched other pills in a bottle partially filled with an unknown liquid was discovered near the girls’ mouths and a prescription bottle of oxycodone was also found in their room, records show.
Cruse was found nude inside the residence with multiple self-inflicted stab wounds and lacerations. A knife was also discovered nearby, authorities said.
A man whose name was redacted in arrest records told investigators Cruse was “upset over a recent court hearing” in which she was set to lose custody of one of her daughters, the Arizona Republic reported.
The man told cops Cruse believed both girls had COVID-19, prompting her to isolate them and treat them with medication to “help them sleep,” records show.
Cruse, who was hospitalized after her daughters were found dead, was arrested following her release Tuesday, KVVU reported.
Investigators are still awaiting toxicology tests on the girls, the station reported. They were found facing each other in bed, with their “arms around each other” as though they had been intentionally placed in that position, cops wrote in a probable cause statement.
Aleyah’s father, Kevin Maddox, who lives in Millville, New Jersey, had custody of the 9-year-old girl, his brother told the Press of Atlantic City.
Maddox’s brother, Terence Ridgeway, said Maddox was unable to reach Cruse for nearly two weeks while Aleyah was with her in Arizona. The pair had been mired in a custody battle over the girl, the newspaper reported.
“My whole family is at a loss for words because Kevin was going to court all this time and winning all these cases,” Ridgeway told the newspaper. “But nobody ever took the baby out of her custody. He was following the court rules … We thought the fighting was over because he won custody but now we have to fight for justice.”
An online fundraiser set up by Royal’s biological father, Michael Coleman, said he moved to Arizona with Cruse for “spiritual reasons” before finding “his two angels” dead last week.
“Unfortunately, I came home to a devastating situation where my daughters were deceased and their mother critically injured,” the website reads. “At this point, there are still more questions than answers.”
Cruse, meanwhile, remains held on $2 million bond and her preliminary hearing has been set for Sept. 23, KVVU reported. It’s unclear if she’s hired an attorney who could speak on her behalf.
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