Police: Former Ohio woman admits to drowning two boys
Officials in Delaware say she feared being deported to Liberia.
Kula Pelima was about 3 years old when Liberia exploded into a bloody civil war in 1990.
In coming years, about 200,000 people would die in the West African nation that’s about the size of Tennessee.
Pelima was among 1.5 million Liberians who escaped the violence, landing in Akron when she was still in grade school.
Now, a generation later, children in Pelima’s care — her infant son and his 5-yearold half brother — are dead.
And police in Delaware say Pelima told them she drowned the boys in a bathtub because she feared being deported to a country she once fled.
Immigration officials picked up Pelima’s boyfriend, a Nigerian and the father of both boys, last month. And Pelima, who let her visa expire, feared she was next, authorities said.
The crime has shaken Wilmington, Del., where the couple lived, and comes amid a raucous national debate over immigration.
Yet it’s unclear whether Pelima — who apparently left Akron several years ago — faced any risk of being forced out of the U.S. despite stepped up enforcement efforts and changing rules.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement said she entered the United States lawfully and had no known criminal convictions.
Pelima, however, feared the worst.
On Monday about 3:45 a.m., she called 911 and told dispatchers she was worried about being deported, police said.
An officer went to her home and tried to assure her local police would not arrest her. The officer also gave Pelima the number of an immigration hot line to call for more information.
Pelima called 911 again about 8:30 a.m. Monday and said she had drowned her son, 4-month-old Solomon Epelle, and his stepbrother, 5-year-old Alex Epelle, authorities said.
“There’s no way of knowing what could have led to the deaths of these children,” Wilmington Police Chief Robert Tracy said at a news conference this week.
Pelima, 30, has been charged with murder and is being held on a $2 million bond.
Her boyfriend, Victor Epelle, 38, has been released from federal custody on humanitarian grounds after being notified of the deaths of his sons.
Federal ICE officials said Epelle was in the United States legally, but he had violated the terms of his status. It wasn’t immediately clear what he had done.
How Pelima landed in Akron was not clear Wednesday.
She could have immigrated, sought asylum or arrived as a refugee in the Rubber City.
Officials at the International Institute of Akron — which resettles refugees — said it likely has no records dating back two decades. But even if the institute did, it would not share the information because refugee files are confidential.
Akron school records, meanwhile, show Pelima attended Findley and Hotchkiss elementary schools, Goodyear junior high and North high school until she withdrew in 2006 when she was about 19 years old.
There is no record Pelima graduated, a spokesman said.
What happened next for the Liberian girl who grew up in Akron is not clear until this week when she confessed, authorities say, to killing two boys, the sort of deadly violence she once escaped as a girl.