Mom accused of stabbing children wanted to ‘make them go to heaven,’ child told hospital staff

Shortly after a woman stabbed her three children, her oldest child told hospital staff that she “was going to make them go to heaven,” prosecutors said Saturday.

Aurionah-Rakii-Karie Parker-White, 23, allegedly stabbed her 1-year-old daughter and two sons, ages 3 and 5, in their wrists with a sharp object in the 7100 block of South Harvard Avenue about 5:45 p.m. Wednesday, Chicago police said.

She was charged Friday with three counts of attempted first-degree murder and three counts of aggravated battery to a child. She was ordered detained by a Cook County judge after a hearing Saturday.

During the hearing, prosecutors detailed the alleged attack and its aftermath.

Tow truck driver DeVaughen Stringfellow, who was on his way to help a friend, said he saw the 1-year-old in the street next to an abandoned car tire wearing nothing but a bloodied diaper. All three children had cuts to their wrists, prosecutors said.

Stringfellow pulled over and drove Parker-White and the children to Saint Bernard Hospital. Hospital staff spoke with Parker-White’s 5-year-old son, who told them his mom had wanted to kill him and his siblings.

In video footage, Parker-White admits stabbing her kids and said it was wrong, prosecutors said. She said she’s stressed and takes care of her kids by herself, and that she wanted to kill herself and kill her kids, prosecutors said.

The children were later transferred to Comer Children’s Hospital, where they were hospitalized in serious condition, police said.

Minutes after the alleged stabbing, the oldest child tried to put his injured arm on his mother to console her, telling her not to cry and that “it’s gonna be all right.”

That heart-wrenching moment between the boy and his sobbing mother stuck with Stringfellow.

“This is what’s messing me up because I can’t get this out my head,” Stringfellow, 50, said of the boy trying to comfort his mother.

A security guard and a nurse at the hospital told officers that Parker-White said she “did it because she had no help,” according to police reports.

Parker-White is expected to appear in court next week.

Contributing: Mohammad Samra