MIAMI – A 41-year-old woman has been arrested after her son and daughter were found dead Tuesday night inside a home in Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood, authorities confirmed on Wednesday.
Odette Lysse Joassaint faces two counts of first-degree murder. She appeared in court Wednesday and was ordered held without bond.
The children’s father identified them to Local 10 News as 5-year-old Laura and 3-year-old Jeffrey.
“You’re a mother. How do you feel, like what is it? Is there a devil in your head?” family friend Darlene Petion asked.
According to Miami police, Joassaint repeatedly called 911 beginning at around 8 p.m. Tuesday and would then hang up the phone.
Officers then responded to her home in the 100 block of Northeast 75th Street, where they said she appeared irrational and spontaneously said, “Come get them. I don’t want them anymore.”
“They found a female who appeared to be irate or going through a crisis,” Miami Police Officer Michael Vega said.
Police said Joassaint appeared to be hallucinating and an officer looked inside the home and saw two children who were tied up inside a bedroom and were unresponsive.
According to Joassaint’s arrest report, the children were lying in bed in a prone position and had their arms, legs and neck tied.
Police said they immediately untied the children and attempted resuscitation efforts while waiting for Miami Fire Rescue crews to arrive.
Both children were pronounced dead at the scene.
Joassaint was seen being removed from the scene on a stretcher. Her statement to detectives was redacted from the publicly released arrest report.
The children’s father told Local 10 News that he had previously reported the mother to the Florida Department of Children and Families, but officials from the department have not yet confirmed that.
The father, Frantzy Belval, arrived at the home holding two large photos of his children and as he is left, wondered what led up to the murder of his kids.
“Anybody said Odette going to do that, I say, ‘No, Odette never do that,’” he said.
Belval said he never thought this would happen, finding it difficult to come up with words following the loss of his only children.
“I’m mad,” he said. “Odette not supposed to do that.”
It is that mother’s friend Hermione Danjour who believes losing her 14-year-old daughter to DCF may have caused her to mentally break down.
“She got another daughter too that is 14 that has not been living with her since December, which means that affected her mental issue,” Danjour said.
Neighbors, meanwhile, were shocked that something like this could happen.
“They were always inside the house. They always go to school, like you know, normal kids,” one neighbor said. “I seen them a couple days ago. I said hi to them like I always do -- give them fist bumps, but it’s just sad that like ... still kind of, like, surprising.”
Local 10 looked into the criminal history of Joassaint and found she was arrested for battery against her husband in 2017 and two years later, she filed a domestic violence injunction against him, which was granted.
The investigation is ongoing.
Anyone with further information about Joassaint is asked to call Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-8477.