Mother pleads guilty in daughters drowning death

<p>A woman who twice tried to kill herself has pleaded guilty to killing her daughter, whose drowning death originally was ruled an accident.</p><p>Trianice Lynn Akins pleaded guilty Monday in Guilford County Superior Court, two years to the day after her daughters death, to second-degree murder in the death of 8-month-old Milalia. She was sentenced to between nine years and 11 years and seven months in prison, where she will receive psychiatric treatment.</p><p>Akins confessed to holding Milalia underwater in a bathtub Feb. 2, 2002, at their Greensboro home until the infant stopped breathing. Police originally ruled the death an accident, saying the baby probably crawled into the tub while family members were sleeping and was unable to crawl out.</p><p>Akins confession came after she had walked onto Interstate 75 in Atlanta and stepped in front of an oncoming 18-wheeler. She later said she was trying to free herself from the secret that she had killed her daughter.</p><p>Akins survived the June 2002 incident, fracturing her skull and a leg. In a hospitals psychiatric unit, Akins finally confessed her secret.</p><p>I realize what I did was wrong and I punished myself, she told the judge Monday. I punished myself enormously.</p><p>On that day two years ago, Milalia had been left sleeping alone on a bed in her grandfathers apartment. Looking at her daughter, Akins later told her father and the police, she heard voices telling her to kill the baby.</p><p>Do it now. Do it now, they said, according to Assistant District Attorney Howard Neumann.</p><p>Milalia was found later that morning, face down in about 8 inches of water.</p><p>The day after Milalia was buried, Akins left Greensboro for Atlanta, where she used to live, said her father, Leon Aikins. Not long afterward, she took a knife off a Wal-Mart shelf, went into the womens bathroom and cut her wrists, a psychiatrist, Dr. James Hilkey, testified Monday.</p><p>A few months later, she attempted suicide again, stepping in front of the 18-wheeler on I-75.</p><p>Hilkey said the woman had severe psychological problems _ probably bipolar disorder with psychotic features _ that affected her ability to plan and use judgment.</p><p>He testified that Akins told him she had been raped and otherwise sexually abused as a child and that she wanted to prevent her daughter from having to undergo the same painful experiences.</p><p>Her father, a long-distance truck driver, said his daughter had a dead stare on her face when she confessed to him while they sat in a hospital.</p><p>She said, These voices kept telling me to do it and I couldnt resist, Aikins testified. She said, Dad, I did it. Im sorry, I just couldnt help myself.</p><p>Not long after she was released from the hospital, Trianice Akins was arrested, her father testified. She had entered a strangers house in an upscale Atlanta neighborhood, fixed herself a sandwich, grabbed a beer and sat down to wait for the police to arrive.</p><p>Reluctantly, the father called the Greensboro police and told them his daughter drowned his granddaughter.</p><p>It was the hardest decision Ive made in my life, he said. Every day, Ive got to know that if it wasnt for me, shed still be out and free.</p>

http://accesswdun.com/article/2004/2/177341