UDPATED: North Augusta Woman Arrested After Investigators Say She Tried To Kill Her Kids

***Friday July 31 Update***

Melissa Sawyers will likely remain in jail over the weekend.  A bond hearing was not scheduled for Friday and the next earliest possibility is Monday August 3.

***7:00 p.m. Update July 30***

North Augusta, SC—29-year-old Melissa Sawyers will not see her children, Thursday night.

Jamie Corbett, friend: “She’s somebody who was crying out for help, and this was her last cry for help.“

North Augusta Public Safety Officers say, Monday night, Sawyers put her 7-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter into her car, then ran a garden hose from the tail pipe, into the car. Sawyers got inside and started driving.

Officers say Sawyers drove around the city for a while, before ending up at her friend Jamie’s house.

Corbett: “She’s been struggling a little bit in her life, and situations people can’t handle certain situations and unfortunately this is how it ended up.“

Two doors down from Jamie’s house, a neighbor says she woke up that night to the sound of screaming.

Beth Guarnieri, neighbor: “When I was on the phone with 911, I heard a scream..I mean, a blood-curdling scream. I’m getting goose bumps, right now, thinking about it. It sounded like a child.“

She called the police, and Sawyers was arrested.

Lt. Tim Pearson, North Augusta Department of Public Safety: “After investigating, we learned that she was trying to kill her children.“

According to incident reports, Sawyers told her children, ‘They were going to heaven together and it would not hurt. They would just go to sleep and wake up in heaven together.“

Lt. Pearson: “Our main focus is that the children are alright….trying to just determine why this happened, because we want to do what we can to make sure that this doesn’t happen again.“

And Sawyers’ friend and husband say they will do the same.

Jeremy Sawyers, Melissa Sawyers’ husband: “I don’t agree with what she did, but there’s nothing to change the fact that she did it. Thank God that she wasn’t successful and she needs help. I still love her and I’m going to do what I can to get her that help and get her better. Not for me, but for her kids, and for herself.“

Sawyers is charged with two counts of administering or attempting to administer poison with the intent to kill, which carries a sentence of up to 40 years in jail.

The children were checked out by medical personnel and are doing well. They are in the custody of their father.

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North Augusta, SC—Our news partner, the ‘Aiken Standard’, reports a North Augusta woman has been jailed on allegations she tried to kill her two children. The woman ran a garden hose from the exhaust pipe of her vehicle into the car while she and her two children were inside, according to reports.

Melissa J. Sawyers, 29, of Dove Avenue, is charged with two counts of administering poison or attempting to administer poison with the intent to kill her 10-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son, Monday evening. The children did not require medical attention.

A witness who called police reportedly saw the victims in the vehicle and opened the doors to get the children out. They ran from the 2002 white Dodge Stratus screaming that their mother was going to kill them, police said.

The children told a North Augusta Public Safety investigator their mother had attached the hose to the car at their Dove Avenue home Monday evening and told them they “were going to heaven together and it would not hurt. They would just go to sleep and wake up in heaven together,“ according to a police incident report.

WJBF News Channel 6’s Joy Howe will have more on this story on our Thursday evening newscasts.

To read the full story, click here.