Jermaine Lawrence was in his work lunchroom when he glanced at the TV and saw the shocking story about a woman wanted for throwing an acid-like chemical at a little boy at a movie theatre on Halloween.

No one knew her identity, but he recognized her immediately. The suspect was his mom, Alverna Maria Lawrence.

"It was crazy, it was terrible," he says of the moment he realized they were looking for his mother. The 33-year-old machine operator then made a difficult but necessary decision: for her sake, he called police and turned her in.

And now he is pleading for our understanding.

"I just want the public to know all the facts before they vilify someone who was loving and just needed help," says her only child. "She suffers from mental illness. She's gone from being a proactive member of society to basically being homeless.

"The person you see there is not her. She needed help. This is the only way I could help her," he explains. "It's sad what happened but it's a blessing in disguise."

Maybe now, her son says, she will finally get the help she so badly needs.

Police say a father was with his son buying tickets for Hotel Transylvania 2 at the Humber Cinemas theatre Saturday afternoon when an unknown woman approached them and suddenly sprayed the boy's neck and ears with a "burning substance" before leaving. Thanks to quick action by his dad, he suffered only minor injuries and is recovering at home.

The incident was both frightening and inexplicable. Who would do such a random, heinous thing to an innocent child?

Lawrence doesn't recognize that woman. The dishevelled 53 year old who appeared in a College Park courtroom Thursday, dressed in a thin, purple dress, handcuffed and confused as the eight charges were read out against her, is not the beautiful mother, nurse and pastor she used to be. And the tragic story of her downward slide into this troubled soul is almost as disturbing as the allegations against her.

"She was the most churchgoing woman you've ever known," her son says with pride. She was a registered nurse heavily involved in her church. She attended a seminary to become a pastor and even headed up the children's choir, he says. About a decade ago, with the aid of a government grant, she set up a drop-in centre at Keele and Wilson. She had a home near Yorkdale and a car.

"She's always been a person of substance but something changed in her," Lawrence says. "She snapped and everything went to s---."

It was about seven years ago that his mother became increasingly paranoid and started obsessing about her fears that the government was trying to clone her and others. With mental illness already present in her immediate family, her relatives quickly recognized that she needed help. But she refused to go and no one would intervene -- not the police or the hospitals they consulted. Everyone told them that if she wasn't a danger to herself or others, there was nothing they could do.

"People are always crying, 'How could this happen when the signs were all there?'" her son says bitterly. "This is the manifestation of that."

Lawrence eventually became estranged from his mom and moved out to Edmonton for a time. Family members would keep in touch and tell him the difficulties they were having with her. They were all at a loss. "We just had to basically fall back."

And now his mother faces a long list of charges in connection with the attack on the little boy: assault causing bodily harm, assault with a weapon, weapons dangerous, carrying a concealed weapon and administering a noxious substance. Police added three more charges on Thursday including common nuisance and two counts of property damage.

She was remanded in custody until Monday for a bail hearing. But what his mother needs is psychiatric care, Lawrence insists. Not prison.

"My heart goes out to him and his family," Lawrence says of the injured boy. "But if these allegations are true, it was not out of malice but because she is mentally ill and she's been suffering for a long, long time."