Needing help: Dallas mom, Saiqa Akhter, killed her two children because they were autistic. She confessed to the killings in a 911 recording
A woman from North Texas who was accused of strangling her two special-needs children because she wanted 'normal kids' has been found not guilty by reason of insanity.
Saiqa Akhter must remain at a state mental hospital for treatment unless a judge approves her discharge.
Medical experts testified Monday that Akhter was diagnosed as schizophrenic and insane when her children were attacked and died in July 2010.
She believed she was saving them, psychologist Kristi Compton testified.
Relatives say the Irving woman's 5-year-old son, Zain, had severe speech problems. Her 2-year-old daughter, Faryaal, was developmentally delayed.
Akhter told a 911 operator that she strangled the children because they were a burden, saying, 'I want normal kids.'
Akhter, 34, is 'a woman battling a mental illness that she grew up not understanding,' Compton said.
Saying 'there is no good solution' in such a case, state District Judge Mike Snipes declared Akhter not guilty by reason of insanity. She will be treated at North Texas State Hospital in Vernon and won't be eligible for release without a judge's approval.
Defense attorneys Robbie McClung and Richard Franklin said their client should be in a mental hospital instead of serving prison time.
RELATED ARTICLES
Why is this killer using Facebook? Woman's fury after inmate... 
Two nuns decapitated and a third also murdered after all...
Share this article
Share'What happened to those children is tragic. We can't change it. We can't take it back,' McClung said. 'This is a situation where this person needs to be in a hospital.'
Attorneys for Akhter, who was originally charged with capital murder, said she belonged in a mental hospital and not prison.
History: Medical experts testified in court Monday that Akhter has been diagnosed with schizophrenia. They said she started suffering from delusions as a young adult
Akhter was insane at the time she killed her two children, and she believed that she was saving them,
It will probably take several years of treatment and medication before Akhter is no longer dangerous, according to witness testimony. McClung said her client and her familiy will be safer if she remains hospitalized.
Akhter had planned to kill her children for weeks before she strangled them. She did Internet searches on how to kill children and what amount of bathroom cleaner would be fatal.
After their mother's call to 911, Zain and his little sister Faryaal were found unconscious in their family's apartment on Esters Road, an audio cord still wrapped around the boy's neck, according to police records.
Akhter said that before strangling them she tried to poison them with bathroom cleaner.
'They don't drink it, so there's a wire there so I just grabbed their neck and then I tried and then they're no more,' Akhter told the 911 operator.
Zain died that day, and Faryaal was removed from life support the following night. Asked how she felt about killing her children, Akhter replied: 'Nothing.'
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7pa3IpbCmmZmhe6S7ja6iaKaVrMBwrdGtoJyklWJ%2FeICYbG1uZ4SaxaK%2FjKampmWepMFus9Sio62xXajBs63NoKOippdif263yJ2qZ6Ckork%3D