A 36-year-old woman suffering a long bout of post-natal depression was charged with killing her five children in their home in Houston in Texas yesterday. She could be facing the death penalty.
The four boys and a girl, aged between six months and seven years, appeared to have been drowned in the family's bathtub, police said.
The woman, Ms Andrea Yates, had taken medication for depression since the birth of her youngest boy two years ago. Mr John Cannon of the Houston Police Department said the role her illness might have played in the crime would not be clear until she gave a formal statement.
A television report showed the long-haired, bespectacled Ms Yates, her shirt torn in many places, being led away in handcuffs.
She was formally charged with multiple counts of capital murder, which carries a maximum penalty of death by injection in Texas.
Prosecutors have not yet decided whether to seek the death penalty but Houston's Harris County is one the most aggressive prosecution districts in the US.
Mr Cannon said the woman called police to her home in a modest south-east Houston suburb.