Mom of preteen who fatally stabbed brother in ‘demonic’ rage says she was on ADHD meds, pulled her off them too late
The heartbroken mom of the Oklahoma girl who fatally stabbed her younger brother in a “demonic” rage said the child had recently become “angry for no reason” while taking ADHD medication — but by the time she pulled her daughter off it, it was too late, and she experienced a “manic episode.”
Lyda said her daughter became irritable when she was placed back on medication for ADHD.
April Lyda revealed during an interview on NewsNation on Thursday night what she believes led her daughter to attack her 9-year-old brother, Zander, in the chest on Jan. 5 at their home in Tulsa.
“From what we found it looks like it was a medication issue, not anything else. Like a manic episode of some kind,” a tearful Lyda told host Chris Cuomo.
She said her daughter became irritable when she was placed back on medication for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder or ADHD.
Asked why she had been taken off the meds, Lyda explained that the girl had cut her arms “within a month of being back on it.”
“So I immediately took her off. After speaking to the school, and her doctor, and herself – we had a long conversation — she said that she felt like she was really irritated, irritable, angry for no reason on the medication.
So of course I took her off of it. Unfortunately, it was too late. The damage was done. Stuff like this kind of thing can happen months or even years after being off of the medication like this,” the grieving mom said.
She said her daughter had been home-schooled for some time but when she went back to school her doctor recommended putting her back on the medication because her grades dropped.
“And so I put her back on it. And then a few weeks later, a month later, she cut her arms. So that’s when I was told to take her back off of it, which I did immediately,” Lyda said.
