TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for a Florida mom who was accused of making her children drink bleach and strangling her toddler to death, according to the State Attorney’s Office.

An affidavit from Orange County, dated May 2022, showed that Joanne Zephir, of Orlando, stabbed her husband of four years in the stomach because she believed he had been cheating.

Hours later, she forced her two daughters, ages 3 and 8, to drink bleach from a “makeshift drinking glass,” before strangling her toddler to death.

Deputies found Zephir unconscious in the driver’s seat of her car, along with her unconscious toddler in the backseat, and the 8-year-old wandering around near the roadway in the church parking lot. The children and her husband were all taken to a hospital where the toddler was pronounced dead.

Zephir blamed her actions on being under a “voodoo spell,” making her harm her children.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty based on the mother having familiar or custodial authority over the victim and her attempt to commit aggravated child abuse, the state attorney’s office said.

She was facing charges of attempted second-degree murder, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and battery domestic violence. Zephir was charged with premeditated murder in 2022 after a medical examiner determined her 3-year-old’s cause of death was due to compression of the neck.