N.Y. 3-Year-Old and Baby Brother Were Found Stabbed to Death in Bathtub, and Mom Is Suspect

Dimone Fleming, 22, who may have been suffering from postpartum depression, is charged with murder

Dimone Fleming (left). Photo: Facebook

A woman in the Bronx borough of New York City has been accused of killing her two young sons, who were found dead in a bathtub, according to multiple reports.

On Sunday, Dimone Fleming, 22, was charged with multiple counts of murder after her two young boys were found dead inside her apartment, located within the Echo Place Family Shelter, a facility for homeless families.

The previous night, the children — 11-month-old Octavius Canada and 3-year-old Daishawn Fleming — were found with "multiple stab wounds" to their torsos and necks, according to Deputy Chief Louis Deceglie, who spoke about the incident at a news conference.

Before finding the wounded children, police came out to the scene while responding to a call about a young woman acting erratically, where they found a "female, naked inside the apartment on the third floor, acting irrational," Deceglie said.

Fleming was allegedly burning objects in the kitchen of the apartment, police say, The New York Times reports.

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Fleming was taken into custody without incident and sent to a local hospital for evaluation. Police did not find the children at that time.

A few minutes later, a separate call came in to police regarding "two unresponsive babies, not breathing, at the same location." Upon entry, responders "found an 11-month-old baby boy and a 3-year-old male, unresponsive with multiple stab wounds about the body," according to officials at the news conference. It's unclear why the children were not discovered during the police's first visit to the home.

The Times, citing a senior law enforcement official, reports the children were found in the bathtub.

Columbus Canada, 31, the father of one of the children, was the person who first found the injured kids, the Times reports. (Canada is not in custody or accused of any crime.)

"I heard the father yelling 'Help me,'" a witness told CBS News, continuing, "I was watching out my window, the babies on their stretchers. The EMTs were doing CPR, and I couldn't believe it."

Officers and a family member tried to resuscitate the children, but both were later pronounced dead at a hospital.

Fleming's father, Dwane Fleming, told the Times that the young mom was recently experiencing a rough patch in her relationship with Canada. He also said relatives believed his daughter was suffering from postpartum depression.

After the incident, a neighbor told CBS News they had witnessed an agitated Fleming outside the shelter, asking what she'd done. "I saw [her] acting crazy, [asking] 'What I did, what I did, what I did?' So I asked her what happened, you OK? But she said nothing," Francis Pimentel recalled, according to CBS.

It was not immediately clear if Fleming has entered a plea or retained an attorney to comment on her behalf.

The medical examiner's office has not yet announced the children's precise cause of death.

PEOPLE reached out to the NYPD for comment, but did not immediately hear back.