Decapitated baby’s mother had history of mental illness

By Calvin Palmer

The Texas woman accused of decapitating her newborn son, mutilating the body and eating body parts had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and postpartum psychosis, the family said yesterday.

Otty Sanchez, 33, of San Antonion, confessed to killing Scott Wesley Buchholz Sanchez on Sunday with a steak knife and two swords before mutilating the corpse and eating body parts that included the brain, nose and toes, police said.

She has been charged with capital murder and remained under 24-hour observation at University Hospital, where she was treated for self-inflicted knife wounds.

The father of the baby, Scott W. Buchholz, referring to his son as “baby Scotty”, said she should be executed.

“She killed my son. She should burn in hell,” Buchholz said.

But Sanchez’s relatives are hoping authorities will take into consideration her history of mental illness, which included a recent diagnosis of postpartum psychosis.

Sanchez’s aunt, Gloria Sanchez, said that her niece had been “in and out” of a psychiatric ward, and that the hospital called several months ago to check up on her.

“It’s just tragic and unbelievable what happened,” said Greg Garcia, Sanchez’s first cousin, who considers her a sister. “She was a good, hard-working person, but she had been diagnosed with schizophrenia last year.”

When officers arrived at the home on Wayside Drive, North Side, at 5:00 a.m. on Sunday, to find the mutilated body, Sanchez quickly confessed to the crime.

“She was hysterical, screaming, ‘I killed my baby. I killed my baby,’” Police Chief William McManus said.

Sanchez told detectives that she was “hearing voices” and the devil made her kill her baby boy, who was born June 30.

Relatives said Sanchez’s mental health severely deteriorated in the week before Scotty’s death. On July 20, she moved out of the home she shared with the baby and his father near Windcrest.

The same day, she checked herself into a hospital after hearing voices, but she soon checked herself out, according to a source familiar with the investigation but unauthorized to speak to the media. She then took the baby to stay at her mother’s home.

Buchholz said he called her every day to convince her to return, to no avail.

She finally reappeared about 2:00 p.m. on Saturday at Buchholz’s parents’ home on the Northeast Side.

“We were so happy to see Scotty again,” Buchholz said.

She was at the home for about 15 minutes when Buchholz told Sanchez that he needed a copy of Scotty’s birth certificate and Social Security card. The request seemed to “set her off”, Buchholz said.

“She grabbed the baby and just said, ‘I gotta go. I gotta go. I’m out of here.’”

His mother called 911, and a sheriff’s deputy arrived to investigate the incident as a disturbance, court records show.

That night, while Buchholz was attending the Judas Priest concert, he received a cell phone call from Sanchez.

“She told me she had found someone else and she never wanted to see me again,” he said.

Police think she killed the baby six hours later.

[Based on reports by the San Antonio Express-News and Associated Press.]