Mom: COVID made me drown 1-year-old daughter in tub. Judge says she’s not guilty
A Miami-Dade County mother who drowned her 1-year-old daughter after saying that her family needed to be baptized because COVID-19 was going to “kill us all” was found not guilty by reason of insanity on Tuesday afternoon.
Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Miguel de la O found that Precious Bland, 43, did not understand the nature of her actions when she killed her daughter. Bland waived her right to a jury trial, instead opting to have de la O determine whether she should be convicted of aggravated manslaughter and attempted murder. The defense argued that Bland had a psychotic episode due to a COVID infection.
“There is zero credible explanation other than her psychotic state,” the judge said.
Bland broke down when the judge announced his verdict, wiping tears from her face. She hugged her attorneys as well as a psychiatrist, who testified during the trial about how he evaluated Bland and believed her to be in a psychotic state when she killed her daughter.
Tuesday’s decision is likely the first time a COVID-related psychosis defense has been successful in the country, attorneys said.
De la O, who said he did not see a reason to commit Bland to a mental institution, scheduled a hearing for Thursday to flesh out the details of her release. In Florida, a person found not guilty by reason of insanity may be placed on conditional release, which requires a treatment plan and periodic monitoring.
Bland walked out of the courtroom Tuesday afternoon. She has been on house arrest with a GPS monitor since September 2025 after the judge granted her a $10,000 bond. Bland was previously in jail since her 2021 arrest.
Outside the courtroom, defense attorney Larry Handfield celebrated the judge’s verdict, saying it was a “glorious day” for Bland. The killing, Handfield said, stood in stark contrast to his client, who was a decorated Navy officer who served in Iraq and was part of a security detail for then-President George W. Bush.
“I knew that she was not responsible for that tragic incident ...,” Handfield told reporters. “The actions that she took [were] the result of a medical crisis brought on by COVID.”
“I love my children,” Bland told reporters. “I’m just ready to get my life together.”
The killing occurred on Aug. 23, 2021, at the home where Bland, her husband, Evan Bland, and their six children lived on the 3000 block of Northwest 99th Street. There, deputies discovered that Bland had drowned her daughter Emii in a bathtub, according to an arrest report.
Emii was found face down inside the bathtub, which was filled with bloody water, investigators say.
READ MORE: Miami mother who cops say drowned her baby and stabbed another child officially charged
Bland’s husband tried to stop her, and a struggle ensued. Precious Bland asked their teenage daughter to get a knife, and the daughter told deputies that she “didn’t know why [Bland] wanted a knife, but she complied.” With that knife, Bland stabbed her husband in the head and neck — and, afterward, sliced her teenage daughter in the forearm as the teen tried to get Emii from Bland, the report says.
When deputies arrived, Evan Bland told them his wife “was upset, stating that Jesus Christ is coming and COVID is going to kill us all,” according to the report. Evan Bland said his wife insisted that everyone in the home needed to be baptized in the bathtub.
Voices lead to killing
Precious Bland, Handfield argued, was “under the influence of delusion” and could not understand the actions that she took the day of the slaying. During the trial, Bland’s husband testified that she was not acting normal days before Emii’s death.
Handfield pointed out that Bland called her family members — and also went door to door to her neighbors — to warn them not to get the COVID vaccine because it was “the mark of the devil.”
The day of Emii’s killing, Bland told her family members they needed to get baptized because “Jesus was coming, and she wanted them to go to heaven together,” the attorney said.
In her delusion, Bland tried to kill her husband because he resisted the baptism. Handfield told the judge her line of thinking was along the lines of: “You don’t want to be saved. You don’t want to be baptized. You are a demon.”
After Emii’s killing, Bland stabbed and attempted to shoot herself but was unable to because of the extent of her injuries, Handfield said, after the voices in her head were giving her those commands. A week after she was arrested, she was still hearing voices, the attorney added.
Handfield also highlighted how Bland’s children, other family members and neighbors testified that she was a loving mother — and that the killing was inconsistent with the Bland they knew.
“She loved being a mother,” Handfield said.
Prosecutor Elizabeth Utset, however, painted a different picture. She argued that Bland was in a “pressure-cooker situation” taking care of six children, two of whom were still in diapers, while homeschooling the four school-aged children. On top of that, Bland was doing all the housework, including renovations, on her own because her husband was working 12 to 14 hours a day.
Bland, Utset added, had no mental-health diagnosis that could explain her behavior, and she told investigators she had never heard voices until the day of the killing. Bland was obsessed with religion, but that did not amount to insanity, the prosecutor argued.
“It’s odd behavior, but it’s not psychosis,” Utset said. “The voices and the COVID psychosis is an embellished and fabricated story.”
Miami Herald Staff Writer David Neal contributed to this report
This story was originally published June 23, 2026 at 8:12 PM.
