09-22-2010, 07:46 AM
there has to be more to why they died than 10 hours in a closet.
INDIANAPOLIS -- A woman charged in the deaths of two of her children allegedly locked them and three siblings inside a small closet and left to visit a friend, returning about 10 hours later to find the boy and girl dead inside.
An Indianapolis police report released Tuesday said Edyan Farah, 28, told officers she "was not in her right mind" when she allegedly put her five children in an upstairs closet about 6 a.m. Sunday and placed a large bed in front of the door so they couldn't get out.
Police said the closet was about 6 feet long and 18 inches deep.
Farah, an immigrant from Somalia, found her 5-year-old daughter, Zuhur, and 3-year-old son, Zakariya, "stiff and unresponsive" when she returned home about 10 1⁄2 hours later and opened the closet, the report said. She told officers she then carried them downstairs, but did not call 911 or try to revive them, according to the report.
Lt. Jeff Duhamell said the three surviving children — a 7-year-old girl and boys ages 5 and 1 — are now in foster care.
"It's just a very, very sad case," he said. "It's one of the worst ones I've seen — to be placed in closet approximately 18 inches by 6 feet and a bed pushed up against it for a minimum of 10 hours. We think possibly a lot longer and probably not for the first time."