Latina Marie Oates and Joshua Oates (Mississippi Bureau of Investigation)
A 36-year-old Ohio mother claimed she believed her 11-year-old son was a demon when she killed him in a Mississippi hotel bathroom three years ago, beating him with an "ancient dagger" — which was actually nothing more than a metal bar — then stabbing the sixth-grader through the back of the head while his two younger brothers were in the room.
A jury in Jones County, Mississippi, on Thursday found Latina Marie Oates guilty of one count of capital murder in the horrific death of young Joshua Oates, authorities confirmed to Law&Crime.
After the jury returned its guilty verdict, Circuit Court Judge Dal Williamson ordered Oates to serve a sentence of life in a state correctional facility without the possibility of parole. Jurors rejected the options of finding Oates not guilty by reason of insanity and not guilty but not restored and still presenting a danger to society.
Throughout the trial, Oates' defense attorneys argued that she was in the midst of a psychotic break when she brutally killed her son. A forensic psychologist testified for the defense earlier in the week that she did not know what she was doing was wrong at the time, according to a report from the Laurel Leader-Call.
Dr. Robert Storer reportedly told jurors about his discussions with Oates about the night of the attack. He testified that in the moments before killing her son, Oates said she went to her car and smoked a cigarette or marijuana, then grabbed a backpack from her car which held the metal pipe she brought from Ohio and believed to be an "ancient dagger." She said she went back into the hotel room bathroom where she reportedly filled the tub with water, then tossed in a piece of toilet paper she used to wipe herself, converting the water into "holy water."
Oates reportedly told Storer she then went to attack Joshua while he was in bed, saying the boy's "eyes were red, he was growling, he was not human anymore." She initially tried to stab the boy in the heart, but she said he woke up before she could plunge the dagger through his chest. She then dragged him into the bathroom, breaking her rosary in the process which she said indicated "there was a demon in the room" and then "pushed him under the water" and killed him, per the Leader-Call.
The attack on the boy was brutal — he suffered more than 60 wounds — and Oates' two other sons told authorities they heard Joshua pleading with his mother and saying, "Why are you doing this?" Laurel, Mississippi NBC and ABC affiliate WDAM-TV reported.
Oates was arrested in March 2020 after she took her three children from their Ohio home and drove to Mississippi without telling her husband where they were going.
Oates on March 17, 2020, was spotted on surveillance footage with her two younger children leaving the Hampton Inn in Laurel. Shortly after they departed the hotel, authorities found Joshua's body inside their room and issued an arrest warrant for Oates. She was later arrested in New Orleans.
During the trial, Oates' husband testified that his wife took their two surviving kids to New Orleans because of Marie Laveau, a famous woman practitioner of voodoo in the 1800s who lived in the city, The Columbus Dispatch reported.