LAS VEGAS -- A woman accused of stabbing her 6-year-old daughter to death with scissors told police she had been taking a weight-loss product, had trouble sleeping for several days and felt an evil presence before the attack.
"Did I kill my daughter? Is she dead?" the 27-year-old woman asked police after she was found Sunday naked, bloody and running barefoot through Las Vegas, according to court documents released Tuesday.
Danielle Yvonne Slaughter was hospitalized after she told police that the blood on her hands was from the "lamb of God." Police said they later found Kyla Franks dead at their home.
"There was no rhyme or reason to it," homicide Lt. Ray Steiber said of the death of the girl. "I don't think there's anything that anyone could have anticipated."
In a police interview recorded early Monday, Slaughter told investigators she had had trouble sleeping since she started taking the weight-loss product Hydroxycut four days earlier, and that she had been feeling "an evil presence" for several days. She said she slept just one hour Saturday night.
"Danielle stated that she never felt this way before," the police report said, adding that she said she wanted to remove the evil from the house. She kept her daughter home from day care that day.
Slaughter told police she and her daughter were sitting on the bed when the girl spoke in "evil words," laughed "in an evil voice" and clawed and kicked at her. The mother said she picked up scissors and struck the child several times.
Steiber said police believe the mother was sleep-deprived and may have been affected by the weight-loss product she had been taking.
Hydroxycut was recalled from the market in 2009 by parent company Iovate Health Services Inc. of Canada and Iovate Health Sciences USA Inc. of Blasdell, N.Y., after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a warning about liver injuries.
The product was later reformulated and returned to the market, Iovate spokeswoman Siobhan DeLancey said Tuesday. She noted in an email that complaints that led to the recall were about excess selenium causing liver damage.
Steiber has said that five people lived at the home, including Slaughter and her daughter, who was a kindergartner at Bell Elementary School. Only those two were home during the killing.
Slaughter’s boyfriend called police Sunday night and said he found the child’s body in the master bedroom.
Police said the mother did not appear to have a prior criminal record.
The Associated Press and msnbc.com staff contributed to this story.
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