ESCAMBIA COUNTY, Fla. — A Florida woman was arrested on attempted homicide charges after officials in Escambia County said she tried instructing a 10-year-old to kill an infant.
According to the Escambia County Sheriff's Office, 36-year-old Tara Alexis Sykes used online messaging to communicate with a 10-year-old child in hopes of instructing the girl to kill a 2-month-old infant.
Deputies said Sykes instructed the girl to try various things to kill the infant, such as drowning the infant in the bathtub, burning the infant with scalding water and dropping the infant on the tile floor.
Sykes also instructed the 10-year-old on how to kill the adults the 10-year-old was temporarily living with by "cutting their throats with a knife while they slept," an arrest report states. She also allegedly told the child to douse bed sheets with aerosol spray and set them on fire. The sheriff's office said the child was able to douse the sheets but was unable to set the bed on fire.
The Escambia County Sheriff's Office was contacted by the Gulf Coast Kids House on Oct. 17 in reference to the infant who had suffered "serious injuries" after being dropped on the kitchen floor by the 10-year-old.
According to NBC News who obtained the full arrest report, the 10-year-old told investigators she dropped the baby on the floor "at the direction of her mother." The foster father then picked up the baby and took him to the hospital where he was treated for a skull fracture.
The full report also states that the 10-year-old was "terrified of her mother and felt that if she did not follow through with the instructions, Sykes would harm or kill her as well."
This story previously reflected that Sykes used the online gaming platform Roblox to communicate with the 10-year-old, as reported by the sheriff's office. Roblox has since reached out with the following statement:
We completed an internal investigation and looked at activity on our platform by the two usernames that were provided by law enforcement. While they did communicate on Roblox, the conversations on our platform were in policy and did not contain the alleged instructions for violence that resulted in the arrest of Tara Alexis Sykes. We've provided these findings to the investigators on the case.
A sheriff's office representative said all messages had been deleted from Roblox by the time their investigation took place, however multiple witnesses stated that the messaging did in fact take place on the gaming app.
Where exactly the messages between Sykes and the 10-year-old took place is still under investigation, the sheriff's office representative said.
“I have been in law enforcement for over 40 years and have never seen anything quite like this," Sheriff Chip Simmons said. "I am truly disturbed by the circumstances and the thought that anyone could think like this, let alone instruct these acts to be carried out. There is something really wrong with her."
The 2-month-old is expected to survive, according to a spokesperson with the sheriff's office.
