A Hamilton County judge has found a Silverton mother competent to stand trial in the suffocation and burning death of her 9-year-old son in May 2001.

Diarro

DeMarlo

        DeMarlo Hayes' attorneys had requested the psychological evaluation last month during a court appearance before Common Pleas Judge Richard Niehaus.

        She is accused of murder and faces a potential death penalty in the death of her son, Diarro. His burned body was found in a trash can in Daniel Drake Park in Kennedy Heights. A coroner later found he had been asphyxiated before being set on fire.

        Ms. Hayes' trial date previously had been set for July 15. But on Monday, her newest defense counsel withdrew and the judge delayed the trial until new attorneys could be assigned.

        Ms. Hayes, 27, earlier had fired a different set of court-appointed attorneys after they tried to get her to agree to a plea deal that would have allowed her to escape the death penalty.

        Authorities said the Silverton woman admitted the killing after initially reporting the boy missing and helping police search for him. But she now has told her various attorneys she is innocent and won't help them with the case because she is waiting for police to arrest the “real killer.”

        Police said she detailed how she killed her son for “defying” her. She was so angry, she told them, she stuffed napkins far down into his esophagus and taped his mouth shut, suffocating him.

        She then taped his body up, threw it into a garbage bag and then into the back of a pickup, drove to the Kennedy Heights park, stuffed it into a garbage can and set it ablaze, police said she told them.

        “I left. I didn't even look back,” Ms. Hayes told police.

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