A clinical and forensic psychologist testified Friday that a mother who allegedly stabbed her 13-month-old daughter to death believed she was "pouring" evil into the toddler when she was breastfeeding the child.
Chloe Alexis Driver, 24, who previously pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, was charged with malice murder and first-degree cruelty to children in the 2020 death of Hannah Nicole Driver.
Her murder trial started earlier this week, with Chief Assistant District Attorney Katie Gropper saying Driver was part of a "polygamist group." Gropper said Driver was married to Benyamin Ben Michael, also known as Brian Joyce or "Z."
Gropper said Ben Michael had at least two other wives, with Ben Michael and Driver sharing a child: Hannah. The district attorney claimed Driver murdered their daughter because she wanted Ben Michael exclusively.
Dr. McLendon Garrett, a staffer at the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities, conducted a clinical interview with Driver following the murder. She said she determined Driver suffered from paranoia, as well as experienced delusionals, which she described as fixed, false beliefs in something even if there is evidence of the contrary.
Leading up to the murder, Garrett said Driver told her she was "seeing signs" that convinced her Ben Michael and the other wives wanted her to kill herself and Hannah. Garrett also said Driver was often seeing knives "in her vicinity" and thought she had "magical powers" and could read minds.
Garrett said Driver told her she reached out to her husband's and his wives for help, by they gave her CBD oil, which allegedly intensified her paranoia and delusional tendencies.
Garrett added that Driver wanted "a normal life" for her child, but realized she wasn't going to get that with Ben Michael.
It wasn't long before Hannah was found dead.
"She told me that she stabbed Hannah," Garrett said in a livestream of the trial shared by COURT TV. "She told me that she stabbed herself."
Garrett said Driver also thought everyone was ganging up on her or out to get her. She felt separated from the other women Ben Michael was married to and was convinced she and Hannah were "sinful."
According to Garrett, Driver thought she was "pouring" evil into her daughter while breastfeeding the toddler.
"She believed she was downloading her sin -- all the bad parts about her -- into her child through breastfeeding," Garrett said. "She also talked about pouring her sin into the child.
Garrett added that Ben Michael reported Driver no longer referenced Hannah by name and instead called her "a sin."
"There was a lot of evidence that she really believed by having with somebody who was married -- by having the child in this sort of open relationship -- that it was a sin and that she passed that sin on to her daughter," Garrett said. "And so they shared that -- that they were both embodiments of sin."
Gropper asked Garrett about what she described as a "specific trigger" that caused Driver to kill Hannah. Garrett said Driver told her she was upset when Joyce threw a dirty shirt at her when she said she needed something clean so she could change Hannah.
In that moment, she said she felt unworthy of life, with Garrett noting that it was potentially "the straw that broke the camel's back" after months of delusions.
Jason Spillars, a witness, previously testified that Driver, Ben Michael and the other wives participated in rituals such as drinking urine and "dark therapy."
Spillars went on to say he was outside the family's home when the man found Driver and Hannah covered in blood. He said he heard a guttural scream, ran into the house, and found the horrifying scene.
It was like a massacre," he said.
The Canton Police Department previously said authorities responded to a home on the afternoon of Dec. 8, 2020, to find Driver, as well as her daughter, suffering from stab wounds in a bedroom. The child was rushed to an area hospital, where she later died.
Driver also stabbed herself, causing life-threatening injuries. She was in serious condition at WellStar Kennestone Hospital for weeks. Her mugshot shows a bandage covering the wounds on her throat.
When she was discharged from the hospital on Dec. 22, police arrested her.
Driver, who also faces an aggravated assault charge and an aggravated battery charge, is currently incarcerated at the Cherokee County Adult Detention Center. Police records note she had previous addresses in Florida and Tennessee.