Oklahoma mother Sheilla Shea spent the last nine years in an Oklahoma mental-health facility for stabbing her 6-year-old son to death.
Now, Shea, 49, has been released from the Oklahoma Forensic Center in Vinita after a judge approved her discharge earlier this month, the Tulsa World reported. Shea, who was found not guilty by reason of insanity, said she thinks about the "tragic event" every day.
"I will forever have to live with myself and what I did," Shea wrote to Tulsa County District Judge James Caputo, who approved her release.
Psychologists for the defense and prosecution agreed that Shea was mentally ill when she fatally stabbed her son Patrick on July 2, 2005, the Tulsa World reported. At the time Shea was suffering from a mental breakdown brought on by an abusive relationship at the hand of her boyfriend.
The day of the murder, Shea was waiting with her children for her family to come from Texas and take her away when she stabbed her son.
"Sometimes I think: What if we would have made it to Texas? What if this? What if that?" Shea said according to the newspaper. "They missed me by seven hours...I couldn't hang on."
Shea was committed to the mental health facility in 2006 for inpatient care after she waved her right to a jury trial. Shea was placed on conditional release in 2011, where she lived in independent housing and received outpatient care.
Judge Caputo noted Shea has not done anything to indicate she belongs back in the facility and approved her discharge.
"She realizes she has a mental illness and that she has to live with this and she has to be medicated and she has to have the support of counseling and family for the rest of her life," Shena Burgess, Shea's former lawyer, told the newspaper.
Shea said finding out she was to be released was a "bittersweet moment," the Tulsa World reported.
"Somebody asked me if I was going to celebrate, and I said, 'It's not a celebration,' " Shea said.
"It's me trying to find peace with what I did."
