Inset: Jasmine Marie Laws (Otter Tail County Sheriff's Office). Background: Minnesota's Battle Lake (Google Maps).
A woman visiting Minnesota with her daughter took a side trip to jail after police said she tried to kill the teenager.
Jasmine Marie Laws, 35, was released from the Otter Tail County Jail and ordered to have no contact with her 15-year-old daughter after being charged with attempted murder. According to court documents reviewed by Law&Crime, Laws was with the teenager at Minnesota's Battle Lake on Sunday afternoon when the pair got into a fight. Deputies from the Otter Tail County Sheriff's Office were called to the scene after reports that Laws allegedly tried to drown the teenager in the lake.
Deputies spoke to Laws first, and she told them that she was lying on the pontoon when her daughter started hitting her with a towel. In response, she threw the girl's phone into the water. Laws said her daughter started punching and hitting her, and Laws admitted to holding her daughter down by the nape of the neck at the edge of the water. Laws told police that her daughter continued to fight her, and that the girl was submerged in the water from the chest down; the girl's head and shoulders were not in the water, Laws said.
Police said Laws told them the girl was "never underwater for more than three seconds at a time," but her head could have been underwater if a wave came in.
When police spoke to the girl and other witnesses, they told a much different story. According to court documents, the girl told deputies that her mother threw her phone in the water, so she went into the water to retrieve it. She and Laws had an argument, and the girl said Laws allegedly hit her first, so the girl said she pulled her mother's hair.
The girl told police that as the altercation escalated, Laws allegedly "tried to put her in headlock and flipped her, causing her neck to hit the dock." Laws then allegedly pushed the girl into the water and held her down with her head submerged. The girl told police that she could not breathe, and if someone had not pulled Laws off her, she believed she would have drowned.
Police spoke to the witnesses who called 911, and they corroborated the teenager's version of events. The witnesses believed the mother and daughter were "play fighting" at first, but then they saw the two go into the water while Laws allegedly pulled her daughter by the hair until her head was "fully submerged."
The witnesses, who lived nearby and ran over to pull Laws off her daughter, told police they heard Laws yell, "I gave you life, I can f—ing end your life" at the girl while holding her head under the waves.
Police said the girl lay "non-responsive" with her eyes closed for a short period of time after she was pulled from the water. While the girl was at the hospital for treatment, deputies spoke to the girl's friend, who had accompanied the mother and daughter on the trip. The friend said while the witnesses were getting Laws off her daughter, she had to "physically pry" Laws' hands off the girl's hair.
Laws, who lives in Maryland, was charged with attempted second-degree murder and three counts of domestic assault, one of which is a felony. She did not appear on the Otter Tail County Jail roster on Wednesday. Court documents indicate that she was ordered to return to Minnesota for her next court appearance on Aug. 26.
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