The mother of an 11-year-old boy has been arrested for knifing him to death at a motel in Southern California after a trip to Disneyland, officials said.
Saritha Ramaraju, 48, of Irvine, is charged with one felony count of murder and one felony enhancement of personal use of a weapon for slitting the boy’s throat, the Orange County District Attorney’s Office said Friday in a news release.
The shocking incident happened earlier this week during a custody visit, officials said.
Ramaraju, who divorced the boy’s father in 2018, was staying with her son at a La Quinta Inn & Suites in Santa Ana during a three-day visit to Disneyland.
On Wednesday, instead of returning the boy to his father, she stabbed him inside their room and then called 911 to report that she had killed her son and had taken pills in an attempt to take her own life, authorities said.
When officers arrived at the scene, they found the 11-year-old unresponsive on the bed surrounded by Disneyland souvenirs. A large kitchen knife, which police said was purchased the day before, was also found in the room.
The boy was pronounced dead at the scene. Investigators believe he had been dead “for several hours” before Ramaraju called 911.
The mother was arrested in the hotel hallway and transported to a nearby hotel for evaluation, according to the Santa Ana Police Department.
Ramaraju is currently being held at Santa Ana City Jail and she’s expected back in court on April 17.
She faces a maximum sentence of 26 years to life if convicted on all charges.
“The life of a child should not hang in the balance between two parents whose anger for each other outweighs their love for their child,” Todd Spitzer, the Orange County district attorney, said in a statement. “The safest place for a child should be in their parents’ arms. Instead of wrapping her arms around their son in love, she slit his throat and, in the cruelest twist of fate, removed him from the very world she brought him into.”