MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – A North Miami Beach woman who police said jumped off an Interstate 95 overpass in an attempt to end her life — with her 3-year-old fraternal twins left for dead in her SUV, foaming at the mouth — is now facing two child neglect charges.
The Miami-Dade Police Department announced the arrest of Shirlene Alcime, 42, Thursday afternoon in connection with the Feb. 2 incident.
Police said Alcime, from her bed at HCA Florida Aventura Hospital, told investigators that she had been “planning, for approximately the last two months,” to “murder” her two children, Milendhet and Milendhere Napoleon-Cadet, due to financial troubles and debt.
The report states that Alcime admitted to driving around all day on Feb. 1, “looking for a bridge to jump from,” settling for one in the northbound lanes near the Florida’s Turnpike extension early the next morning.
Alcime “admitted to contemplating jumping off the bridge with both victims or throwing them off one by one and then jumping to end their lives,” police wrote, and “admitted to walking away while both victims were foaming at the mouth, once she heard the police sirens.”
Before she jumped off the bridge in her failed suicide attempt, she told a tow truck driver who stopped to offer help to call 911 for her children, police said. The twins, a boy and a girl, were taken to Jackson North Medical Center where they were pronounced dead.
“During the course of the interview, (Alcime) provided detailed accounts as to her whereabouts and events that transpired with the two victims,” a detective wrote in the report. “However, when (she) was specifically asked what she gave the victims to ingest causing them to foam at the mouth and become unresponsive, she denied giving the victims anything and stated she does not know what happened.”
Police said they’re still awaiting a toxicology report from the Miami-Dade Medical Examiner’s Office to determine the twins’ cause and manner of death.
Alcime was being held without bond, according to police.