A pregnant South Carolina woman had talked about demons before leaving the house and driving a minivan carrying her three young children into the ocean surf off Florida, according to her sister who worriedly called police, officials said during a news conference Wednesday.
The 31-year-old Ebony Wilkerson's black Honda Odyssey was stopped by Daytona Beach police officers after a call was made to dispatch on Tuesday, the Associated Press reported.
In the call, she expressed fear that her husband would be coming to Florida to harm her and her children, said Police Chief Mike Chitwood.
"When we spoke with her she was lucid," Chitwood said. "The children were in the back seat, they were buckled in and were not in distress. Although the sergeant said she looked like she had some mental illness, she did not fit the criteria for going into custody under the Baker Act."
According to the AP, the Florida Mental Health Act, commonly known as the Baker Act, allows authorities to involuntarily take people into custody if they seem to be a threat to themselves.
Wilkerson drove into the ocean two hours after the police stop. As the minivan was almost submerged, bystanders and officers helped pull her and her children - ages 3, 9 and 10 - from the car.
Ebony Wilkerson's sister told police she was concerned about her sister's mental state, Chitwood said.
"Her sister had called dispatch and told them that she (Wilkerson) had been talking about demons that day before she left the house," Chitwood said.
Chitwood said Wilkerson went to Halifax Health Medical Center on Monday to voluntarily check herself but then decided against it and walked out.
The children were turned over to welfare authorities, the AP reported.
Wilkerson was undergoing a mental evaluation, the Volusia County Sheriff's Office said. Sheriff Ben Johnson said it's too early to say whether Wilkerson will face criminal charges.
