DAYTONA BEACH — The pregnant South Carolina woman who drove into the Atlantic Ocean with her three children strapped in the backseat had been talking about demons just hours before she plunged into the surf, a Daytona Beach police report shows.
Police Chief Mike Chitwood said his officers spoke with 32-year-old Ebony Wilkerson just two hours before she drove her black Honda Odyssey into the ocean about 5 p.m. Tuesday in front of several horrified beachgoers. She told police she feared her husband was coming to harm her and her children.
“The mother is undergoing a mental health evaluation and the three children have been turned over to the care of the Florida Department of Children & Families,” Volusia County sheriff’s spokesman Brandon Haught said.
The incident began a few minutes before 5 p.m. Tuesday, near the Silver Beach Avenue approach, Haught said. A Volusia County Beach Safety Ocean Rescue officer reported seeing a Honda Odyssey van with a South Carolina tag driving recklessly on the beach.
The vehicle drove southbound in the surf, parallel to the shore, before turning east and driving into about 3 to 4 feet of water.
As additional Beach Safety officers arrived on scene, the van was floating and almost completely submerged in the water. The incident also attracted several bystanders who were running in the water alongside the van trying to get the driver to stop. The van eventually came to a halt about three-quarters of a mile south of the Silver Beach approach, Haught said.
With the help of the bystanders, Beach Safety officers were able to remove the children — a 10-year-old girl, 9-year-old boy and a 3-year-old girl, who was strapped into a booster seat — and take them on shore to safety. Beach personnel along with paramedics from Volusia County’s ambulance service and the Daytona Beach Fire Department tended to the mother and children. All four were then taken by ambulance to Halifax Health Medical Center.
The state Department of Children & Families is doing everything to ensure the safety of the children, said agency spokesman John Harrell.
“The kids are doing well,” Harrell said Wednesday afternoon. “They have been released from the hospital and are in our care.”
DCF is conducting a full investigation of the case and before the children are released to family members, the agency will conduct background checks to ensure the children will be placed in a safe environment. The investigation will focus on whether there have been previous cases of abuse that family members may know of and a check on whether there have been mental health issues that are of concern to the children’s well-being, Harrell said.
“We are going to do everything we can to keep the children safe,” Harrell said. “Once we make a determination, the case will go before a judge in 48 hours and the judge will make the ultimate decision on where the children will be placed.”
Sheriff Ben Johnson said Wednesday afternoon that Wilkerson had yet to be interviewed, and it was too early to determine if charges would be filed.
“We need to determine: Is this a medical incident? Is this a mental incident?” Johnson said.
Mark Swanson, director of Beach Safety, said Wilkerson would not answer questions while at the scene.
“She was acting inappropriate,” Swanson said.
Officials did not reveal Wilkerson’s whereabouts Wednesday.
Johnson said Daytona Beach police spoke with Wilkerson a couple of hours earlier at the request of concerned family members.
The concerned family was Wilkerson’s sister Jessica Harrell who called law enforcement to request a well-being check on her sister.
“My sister was getting abused by her husband,” Harrell said.
Harrell said Wilkerson drove from South Carolina to Daytona Beach, and on Monday she took her sister to the hospital, but Wilkerson had checked herself out the next day.
“She’s getting a little bit better, but she’s not all here, and she’s trying to drive, and I’m trying to stop her,” Harrell told the dispatcher.
“She’s having psychosis or something,” Harrell said. “She’s talking about Jesus and that there’s demons in my house and that I’m trying to control her, but I’m trying to keep them safe.”
Harrell told the dispatcher she had tried to get her sister into a domestic abuse shelter but the shelter was full. Wilkerson told police and family members she feared her husband, but the sheriff said investigators had not spoken with the husband.
Cheryl Fuller, director of the Domestic Abuse Council of Volusia County, confirmed that shelters for victims of domestic violence were filled on Tuesday when Wilkerson’s sister called to find a place for Wilkerson and her children.
Fuller said there are 75 people waiting to get into the domestic abuse shelter in Volusia. She said the agency will call the domestic abuse shelters in both Flagler and Seminole counties, and even the homeless shelters, “But if there are no beds, there are no beds,” Fuller said.
“This really saddens me,” Fuller said Wednesday evening. “I saw her story on TV and I had no idea she might be a victim of domestic violence. Unfortunately, we were full. But we try not to turn anyone away.”
While her sister was speaking with the dispatcher, Wilkerson managed to find a second set of keys to the Odyssey.
Harrell then told the dispatcher Wilkerson was driving away with the three kids in the car and that she didn’t know where Wilkerson was headed.
Daytona Beach police caught up with Wilkerson at Jimmy Ann Drive and North Clyde Morris Boulevard.
According to the Daytona Beach police report, Wilkerson told officers she was afraid her husband would be coming to Florida to harm her and her children and that she was going to “her safe place.”
Wilkerson would not divulge where she was going for fear that someone would tell her husband, Chief Chitwood said.
“When we spoke with her she was lucid,” Chitwood said. “The children were in the back seat, they were buckled in and were not in distress.”
Chitwood said a sergeant said Wilkerson looked mentally ill but that she didn’t fit the criteria for going into custody under the state’s Baker Act, which allows people to be held temporarily if they are a danger to themselves or others.
“Two hours later she drove into the ocean,” Chitwood said.
Tim Tesseneer of North Carolina told NBC News he first thought the driver of the van was just having fun.
“Then we got to hearing kids sort of screaming, and I swear I heard one of them say ‘Help,’ ” Tesseneer said.
He said he and another passerby spoke with Wilkerson before she drove into the water. Tesseneer said one of Wilkerson’s children was sitting on the mother’s lap trying to steer the van away from the water.
Tesseneer said they told Wilkerson she was too close to the water and could get in trouble.
Wilkerson, with “a blank, scary look” on her face, told him and the other person, “We’re OK. We’re going to be fine,” and continued to drive.
Tesseneer said they then heard one of the kids scream out, “Please help us, our mom’s trying to kill us.”
Wilkerson, of Cross, S.C., was out of the van by the time rescuers arrived as the Honda, with the three young children still inside, got pounded by wave after wave.
Swanson said after the family was removed from the minivan, they were placed inside another vehicle to get warmed up. He also said if the family hadn’t been rescued as quickly as they were, the outcome probably would’ve been different.
Johnson and Swanson said they do not know if the mother made any attempts to get her children out of the van.
Swanson also said he did not know where the woman entered the beach or for how long she had been driving on it.
Vermont resident Donna Pratt, who was staying at the Catalina Beach Club Resort, said she and her daughter’s friend observed the activity from their second-floor balcony.
Pratt said she was surprised and frightened by the mother’s actions upon exiting the van.
“She proceeded to go out farther into the ocean,” said Pratt, 47. “It didn’t look like she was panicked.”
Taylor Quintin, the friend of Pratt’s daughter, said she could see the kids hanging out of the windows shouting for help.
Quintin, 14, said several pairs of men’s shoes and items of men’s clothing came out of the van during the incident. She also said she saw large picture frames wash up on the sand as well.
Quintin said one of the bystanders who assisted in the rescue told her the woman had said her husband was in the car when she was asked if she and her children were the only occupants.