A Maryland woman visiting Minnesota with her teenage daughter has been charged with attempted murder after police say she tried to drown the 15-year-old during a fight at a lake.
Jasmine Marie Laws, 35, was arrested after the frightening incident Sunday afternoon at Battle Lake in Otter Tail County, according to court documents reviewed by Law&Crime.
Laws has since been released from the Otter Tail County Jail and ordered to have no contact with her daughter.
Deputies with the Otter Tail County Sheriff’s Office were called to the lake after witnesses reported that Laws had allegedly tried to drown the teenager during an argument.
When deputies first spoke with Laws, she claimed she had been lying on a pontoon when her daughter began hitting her with a towel. Laws said she responded by throwing the girl’s phone into the water.
According to police, Laws claimed her daughter then began punching and hitting her.
Laws admitted to holding the teenager down by the nape of her neck near the edge of the water, but she insisted the girl was only submerged from the chest down. She told investigators that her daughter’s head and shoulders were not in the water.
Police said Laws also claimed the teenager was “never underwater for more than three seconds at a time,” though she acknowledged the girl’s head could have gone underwater if a wave came in.
However, investigators said the teen and nearby witnesses told a much different story.
The girl told deputies that after her mother threw her phone into the lake, she went into the water to retrieve it. She said the two began arguing, and that Laws allegedly hit her first. The teenager said she then pulled her mother’s hair.
As the fight escalated, the girl claimed Laws “tried to put her in a headlock and flipped her,” causing her neck to hit the dock.
Laws then allegedly pushed the teen into the water and held her down with her head submerged.
The girl told police she could not breathe and believed she would have drowned if witnesses had not intervened.
Those witnesses, who called 911, reportedly backed up the teen’s account.
According to court documents, the witnesses said they initially thought the mother and daughter were “play fighting.” But the situation quickly turned serious when they saw the pair go into the water and Laws allegedly pulled the girl by her hair until her head was “fully submerged.”
The witnesses, who lived nearby, ran over and pulled Laws off the teenager.
They told police they heard Laws yell, “I gave you life, I can f—ing end your life,” while allegedly holding the girl’s head under the waves.
Police said the teenager lay “non-responsive” with her eyes closed for a short time after she was pulled from the water.
The girl was later taken to a hospital for treatment.
Deputies also spoke with the teen’s friend, who had accompanied Laws and her daughter on the trip. The friend said that while witnesses were trying to get Laws off the girl, she had to “physically pry” Laws’ hands from the teenager’s hair.
Laws, who lives in Maryland, was charged with attempted second-degree murder and three counts of domestic assault. One of the domestic assault counts is a felony.
She was no longer listed on the Otter Tail County Jail roster as of Wednesday.
Court documents show Laws has been ordered to return to Minnesota for her next court appearance on Aug. 26.
