OLYMPIA, Wash. — Christina Booth, 28, sat teary-eyed, clutching her hands, dressed in an orange jump suit from the Thurston County jail.
"Ma'am, are you Christina Eva Booth?" asked Thurston County Superior Court Judge James Dixon.
"Yes, sir," said Booth, through tears.
She said very little else during her first court appearance -- a day after this:
"911 operator. What are you reporting?"
"Ma'am," came the reply, between sobs.
Booth’s desperate call to 9-1-1 for help after allegedly doing the unthinkable -- trying to kill her three young children.
"OK and do you think they need medical attention?" the operator asked.
"Yes," said Booth. "I don't know what they want."
According to court documents, Booth told Olympia detectives she and her husband, 32-year-old Thomas, an active duty Joint Base Lewis McChord soldier, had been drinking and watching a movie when she went upstairs to put the children to bed.
Thomas, she said, "gets very annoyed when the children cry and make noise."
When all three started crying, she says, she hit her breaking point. She went downstairs, got a kitchen knife then tried to slit their throats.
"They will be quiet now," she said.
"It's very disturbing, absolutely," said Olympia Police Lt. Jim Costa.
The case, said Costa, is touching nearly everyone involved.
"Disturbing for everybody involved," said Costa. "Hospital, the staff that had to deal with the children. You know you can see what the parents were going through. The neighbors. This touches a lot of people."
Court documents show Booth is being treated for postpartum depression.
Nevertheless, the judge set her bail at $3 million.