Pa. woman says voices told her to kill 5-year-old son, police say

A Cambria County woman is in prison after police say she killed her 5-year-old son.

Cambria County coroner Jeff Lees ruled that the death of Samson Bowser was a homicide and caused by asphyxia due to “compression of the chest and obstruction of the airway,” WJAC reported.

Police and EMS responded to a call of a child going into cardiac arrest at about 2:30 p.m. Monday in 100 block of Cosey Lane in Lilly. Once there they found a woman attempting to give CPR to her son.

The woman identified herself to police as Samson Bowser’s aunt and said she had come to the house to check on him and had found him lying unresponsive on the floor. She said that the child and his mother, Jennifer Bowser, 41, had been living at the property with the child’s grandmother.

Unfortunately, Samson Bowser was unable to be revived, WTAJ said.

When questioned by police, Jennifer Bowser said that she had been hearing voices from a “machine box or mic box” that told her to smother the child so he didn’t go to “H-E-double hockey sticks.”

She also told police that she had barricaded herself in her room with her child because a female voice called “Kaya” was saying Samson wasn’t her child. Later that day, other voices said that the cops were coming and were going to shoot through the barricade and kill Samson if she didn’t smother him.

Bowser said to police that the voices were got “meaner and meaner,” according to WTAJ, saying that people with guns were at the windows and going to shoot through the wall.

She said that she killed her son by smothering him with a blanket and her hands. She also told authorities she tried to break his neck to kill him faster, as the child was fighting back, hitting and kicking her.

Bowser’s mother told police that she went to see a doctor on Jan. 30 because she was hearing voices, but no official diagnosis was given.

“To say that this is a difficult case for law enforcement is an understatement. Many of us are parents and I think we all hugged our kids a little harder last night,” District Attorney Greg Neugebauer said during a press conference.

Bowser has been charged with homicide, aggravated assault of a victim less than 13, and strangulation. She is being held in the Cambria County Prison.