EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. - An Illinois mother arrested as she sat with a shotgun outside a St. Louis television station was charged yesterday with fatally shooting her two youngest children.
Yokeia Smith, 25, was charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of daughter Yokela, 4, and son Levada Brown, 5. Their bodies were found in the family’s apartment after an 8-year-old brother escaped unharmed.
“I don’t know what to say in the face of such evil,’’ St. Clair County state’s attorney Brendan Kelly said yesterday. “These officers will never be able to forget what they saw Wednesday night.’’
Autopsies determined that each child was shot once in the head at close range with a shotgun and died instantly.
A judge ordered Smith held without bond and it was not immediately clear how soon she would be returned to Illinois to face the murder charges.
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