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OSCEOLA COUNTY, Fla. — Prosecutors with the State Attorney’s Office for Orange and Osceola Counties filed a Notice of Intent to Seek the Death Penalty Monday in the case against Joanne Zephir.
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Osceola County deputies arrested Zephir, now 38, in May of 2022 after they said she stabbed her husband before forcing her three and eight-year-old children to drink bleach, then strangled the three-year-old to death.
The husband and the eight-year-old were treated at a local hospital and survived.
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A grand jury indicted Zephir in February on a capital-level felony of first-degree murder with a weapon, making her eligible for the death penalty.
The grand jury also returned indictments charging Zephir with attempted first-degree murder with a weapon and attempted felony murder with a weapon.
In their notice to seek the death penalty, prosecutors said they took into account the victim’s age and Zephir’s status as a “familial or custodial authority” over them.
Zephir is due in court on Wednesday for a pre-trial hearing. Her trial is currently scheduled to start in mid-July.
The investigation began on Mother’s Day in 2022 when deputies say Zephir called a family member to say she had killed her three-year-old child and that her eight-year-old was about to die.
Investigators were able to track Zephir’s phone to a park in the area of Old Pleasant Hill Road in the Poinciana area.
When deputies arrived, they found Zephir unconscious inside the car with her three-year-old child and the eight-year-old unconscious near the roadway.
All three were taken to a hospital, but the three-year-old did not survive.
Investigators said Zephir told them a voodoo spell made her harm her children.
She’s been in the Osceola County jail on no bond since her arrest in 2022.
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