A woman has been charged with attempted murder after trying to decapitate her own son, according to US media reports.

Kristina Naranch Petrie, 46, is accused of attempted first-degree murder, first-degree child abuse and second-degree child abuse, records at Montgomery County District Court in Maryland show.

“Kristina Petrie stated that she did not want her children to grow up to be a burden to society and that the children needed to die,” the court document stated.

The mother reportedly told hospital staff she “felt overwhelmed and that she was not doing enough to help her children with their autism".

She is also said to have admitted to staff that she tried decapitate one of her sons with a saw.


The 11-year-old son told Montgomery County police investigators that when he arrived home from school earlier this month he found his younger brother crying on the sofa while his mother was alternating between crying and laughing.

The young boy told police his mother attacked him after she found him playing video games rather than studying shortly later that afternoon.

“Victim A stated that he ended up in the kneeling position as Kristina Petrie ‘jammed’ the bow saw into the back of his neck, moved it back and forth multiple times and ‘tried to kill’ him,” one of the court documents said.

When detectives in Rockville, Maryland, saw the boy three days later he was found with “several thin lines with the skin broken and some scabbing”, as well as having visible cuts on his left shoulder and red marks in a diagonal pattern on his back between his shoulder blades.

The other son is not thought to be injured.