Mom charged with murder after kids thrown in Bay

Lashuan T. Harris, 23, of Oakland, was held in a hospital jail ward after police saw her pushing an empty baby stroller away from the pier where a witness reported spotting a woman drop the children off the end Wednesday night.

The body of Harris’ middle child, Taronta Greeley, 2, was recovered late Wednesday near the St. Francis Yacht Club, about two miles from Pier 7. The other two boys — Treyshun Harris, 6 and Joshoa Greeley, 16 months — remained missing Thursday, but were presumed dead after so many hours in water with a swift current and temperatures in the low 50s.

The U.S. Coast Guard called off its search Thursday afternoon, but the San Francisco police and fire departments continued to scour the bay for the two bodies until after dark without finding the bodies of the two other children. "We are going to be out here until we find them,” said San Francisco Police spokeswoman Maria Oropeza.

The San Francisco District Attorney’s office charged Harris with three counts of murder and three counts of assault on a child with great bodily injury. Because multiple murder charges are involved, she could be eligible for the death penalty, although District Attorney Kamala Harris opposes capital punishment.

Harris was jailed in a locked ward at San Francisco General Hospital and was scheduled to be arraigned on Friday, officials said. The sheriff’s department would not say why the young mother was kept in the hospital, but Harris suffered from schizophrenia and had threatened to hurt her children, according to Britney Fitzpatrick, her 16-year-old half-sister.

"She told my mama she was going to feed them to the sharks,” Fitzpatrick said. "No one thought it was that serious.”

The mother told investigators that while she had heard voices before, she had taken the anti-psychotic drug Haldol to control her schizophrenia and then stopped once her symptoms got under control over the summer, according to information from the police report. But the voices returned Tuesday night and were still with her when she put her children into the water.

Asked why she didn’t seek help from a doctor on Wednesday, she said she didn’t know but thought the clinics would be closed.

About a dozen family members spent Thursday afternoon meeting with police investigators and praying near the pier. They described Harris as a devoted mother who used to work as a nurse’s assistant at a retirement home in Oakland, but over the last year-and-a-half fought an increasingly unsuccessful battle with mental illness.

"It’s confusing. I just want to know why she did it,” said Demarcus Harris, Lashuan Harris’ cousin.

The last time he saw his cousin was Tuesday afternoon at his sister’s house in Oakland. When she left, Harris said goodbye and "I’m going to miss y’all,” but that neither he nor his sister had an indication of what she would do the next day.

"We all thought she was just going home,” Demarcus Harris said.

Harris, the third oldest of seven siblings, had been living with her children in a Salvation Army shelter in Oakland since early September, said her oldest sister, Telicia Harris, 26. In August, the oldest boy enrolled in the first grade at Manzanita School, located within walking distance of the shelter.

"That’s what she said she wanted to do,” Telicia Harris said. "She said that God told her to do that.”

Before that, she lived with her mother in Oakland, with another sister in Jacksonville, Fla. and with the father of her children. She had been taking medication for her schizophrenia, but Telicia Harris said she did not know how consistently.

Lashuan Harris was hospitalized at least twice this year — in January at a Bay Area facility and during the spring in Florida — and her mother was briefly granted custody of the boys. Alameda County social service workers determined after the first hospital stay that Lashuan was fit to care for the children, Telicia Harris said.

After she went to Florida in April, she was hospitalized again, and their mother drove across the country to retrieve Lashuan and her grandsons, Telicia Harris said.

Police said the father of the children has been helpful.

Harris did not have a lawyer as of late Thursday afternoon, according to Susan Fahey, a spokeswoman for the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department.

The pier extends into the bay from the Embarcadero, an area that draws tourists to the historic Ferry Building within view of Coit Tower, the San Francisco Bay Bridge and the landmark Transamerica pyramid. It’s about a mile from Fishermen’s Wharf.

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Associated Press writer Jordan Robertson contributed to this story.

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