Joanne Zephir (Office of the State Attorney for the Ninth Judicial Circuit).
The body camera video captures deputies leading a mother, who is a defendant in a murder case, away from the hospital. The woman is accused of compelling her two children to consume bleach and strangling one of them to demise.
Joanne Zephir had recently stabbed her husband, picked up their young daughters from a relative’s home, and then made the girls drink bleach in a parking lot, according to the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office. The younger child, a 3-year-old, was then strangled to death, prosecutors say. Zephir had then been hospitalized after she tried to die by suicide, authorities said.
Deputies responded in the early morning of May 8, 2022, after the defendant allegedly called her sister-in-law to reveal what she had done. According to documents, the sister-in-law asked to speak with the surviving daughter, an 8-year-old. Zephir gave the phone to the child and the sister-in-law told them to run.
Deputies soon found the 8-year-old girl and they also found Zaphir and her 3-year-old daughter inside a car.
“Joanne was found sitting in the driver’s seat of the vehicle and deputies noticed she appeared lethargic and was drooling from the mouth,” they wrote.
The 3-year-old was unresponsive in a child seat in the back.
“Deputies reported they could smell a strong odor of bleach emitting from the interior of the vehicle,” they wrote.
EMS tried to save the child.
The 8-year-old told investigators at the hospital that her mother picked up her and her younger sister from their aunt’s home and drove them to the parking lot, where they took a nap.
“After their nap, her mother made her and her sister drink a ‘special milk’ that she told them would clean their ‘bellies,”” authorities wrote. “The 8-year-old explained her mother first made her 3-year-old sister drink the milk, but her sister told Joanne that the milk was ‘yucky.’ Joanne told her the milk was good for her and she had to drink it and then proceeded to make the 3-year-old drink about half the bottle of milk.”
Zephir allegedly then gave the “milk” to the 8-year-old for drinking. That child told investigators that she drank three big sips before vomiting. According to documents, she described it as smelling bad, like pickles, and that it burned her tongue.
“The 8-year-old female stated her mother put her sister back in the car and she was no longer breathing and she had died,” they wrote.
Zephir allegedly admitted post-Miranda to stabbing her husband before picking up the girls from their aunt’s home.
Records show prosecutors are seeking the death penalty, though they have offered a plea deal. Zephir recently tried to replace her attorney, but the court shot that down, determining that she was “not being rendered ineffective counsel.” Her attorney, Junior Barrett, works for the Office of Criminal Conflict and Civil Regional Counsel. The local public defender’s office withdrew in July 2022.
