April 22 (UPI) -- A Georgia woman accused of killing her 1-year-old daughter two years ago was found not guilty by reason of insanity.
On Friday, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Shakira L. Ingram issued a ruling in the case against Asia Calabrese-Lewis, 26, who allegedly killed her daughter, Nirvana Oliver, in May 2023 while Lewis was in the middle of a severe mental-health episode.
She has suffered bipolar 1 disorder and depression most of her life, according to court documents, and was charged with first-degree cruelty to children and felony murder.
At the time of the alleged offenses, "the Defendant did not have the mental capacity to distinguish between right and wrong and that she acted because of a delusional compulsion (as a result of her mental illness) which overmastered her will to resist committing the crime," the judge's ruling read in part.
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The young girl was found dead in a pond and rushed to Children's Healthcare in Atlanta, where she was later declared dead.
Police in Sandy Spring, about 20 miles north of Atlanta, responded to a disturbance at 2 Concourse Parkway, where they found Calabrese-Lewis in a parking deck experiencing what appeared to be a mental breakdown.
Security footage from 2023 showed her walking the daughter toward the pond out of camera footage view for six minutes and then calmly walked back into the camera frame naked without the toddler.
The troubled mother reportedly told the child's father their daughter was dead.
Meanwhile, Calabrese-Lewis has been committed to the state's Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities for evaluation to report on her mental condition and if it meets criteria for a civil confinement.
