Mother threatened to feed sons to sharks

THE woman charged with tossing her three sons into San Francisco Bay has been battling schizophrenia and once said she was going to feed the boys to the sharks, family members said.

Lashuan Harris, 23, was charged with three counts of murder on Thursday while anguished relatives kept vigil and rescuers combed the chilly water for the bodies of two of the young victims.

Harris was being held in a hospital jail ward and was arraigned Friday.

Family members said Harris, who had been was hospitalised twice this year and had received outpatient psychiatric treatment, had made threats before.

An aunt told the San Francisco Chronicle the threats had prompted the woman’s mother to contact authorities, but others said they didn’t think Harris would actually kill her children.

“She told my mama she was going to feed them to the sharks,” said Britney Fitzpatrick, Harris’ 16-year- old half sister. “No-one thought it was that serious.”

According to a police report, the 23-year-old Harris was heeding voices in her head when she went to San Francisco and dropped her children off a pier into the chilly water Wednesday night.

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

The former nurse’s assistant had been living with her boys in a Salvation Army homeless shelter since September.

The body of Harris’s middle child, Taronta Greeley, 2, was recovered late Wednesday.

The other two boys - Treyshun Harris, 6 and Joshoa Greeley, 16 months - remained missing, but were presumed dead after so many hours in water with a swift current and temperatures around 10 degrees Celsius.