09 November,2010 04:40 PM IST | | Agencies
A US woman, accused of murdering her four-year-old daughter, told police that she killed the child to save her from being sold as a sex slave on the internet, it was reported here on Tuesday.
Marci Webber, a mother of three, drugged her daughter Magdalene with sleeping pills before butchering with such ferocity that she almost severed her head, the Daily Mail reported.
She then wrote the words "divine mercy" in her daughter's blood on a bathroom wall.
Webber, 43, gave a bizarre explanation for the murder, prosecutors in Chicago said.
Assistant State's Attorney Joseph Lindt said Webber had wanted to stop her daughter from being raped and exploited on the internet.
"She said she wanted to keep her daughter from being an internet sex slave," Lindt said.
Webber, who has two other daughters aged 10 and 18, was visiting her mother in Chicago from her home in Long Island, New York.
Webber was found at the murder scene with self-inflicted injuries on her throat and wrist, the report said.
She is being held on $5 million bond after making an initial court appearance before DuPage County Judge Richard Russo by video link from prison.
Court records show that Webber has been involved in a custody dispute with the four-year-old girl's father. In 2001, she founded a group called Reform Our Courts 4 Kids to focus on child custody issues.
