News 12 First at Five, January 7, 2009

AUGUSTA, Ga.---Not guilty by reason of insanity. That's the verdict for Jeanette Michelle Hawes in the stabbing deaths of her two young children. Family members and a responding psychiatrist reacts.

Jeanette Michelle Hawes was cleared on all six counts of murder and possession of a knife. The victims were her two young children.

"I'm just relieved," said Jeanette's sister Sheranda Jenkins. "Thank God."

Family members are now looking to move past November 2007. Jeanette Hawes locked her and children in a Texaco gas station restroom. Customers heard screaming, and officials forced their way inside to find her 1 year old son stabbed at least 4 times and her 3 year old daughter stabbed 11 times.

"That wasn't her," said Sheranda.

"I've been practicing psychiatry for 22 years," said psychiatrist Dr. Susan Haverstock. "I've never come across a case this tragic."

Dr. Haverstock testified. She called Hawes paranoid schizophrenic. Haverstock says Hawes believed evil forces were out to get her and that her children had been taken over by demons.

"She was highly psychotic," said Haverstock. "She was out of reality."

Just days after the stabbing Hawes reportedly said she was terrified for her own safety and would have done anything to escape.

"She had no comprehension of what she had done," said Dr. Haverstock.

Hawes will now spend time in a state mental health facility.

"This was probably the most tragic outcome of a psychiatric illness I have ever seen," said Dr. Haverstock.

If found not guilty by reason of insanity, a person is confined in a mental hospital until they prove to a judge they pose no risk to society. In Georgia, some patients have been released quickly while others spent decades, often about the same time as if they were found guilty.

There are 168 people who were found not guilty by reason of insanity in Georgia hospitals, according to the state Department of Human Resources. Not all are in for murder. Ten years ago, there were 250.