ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (WFLA) — A St. Petersburg mother is accused of killing her 4-year-old son and was ordered held without bond after appearing in court Wednesday.
Investigators said Diana Cullom suffocated her son, Finley Cullom, inside the family’s home in the Shore Acres neighborhood. The child’s death is now being investigated as a homicide.
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Cullom appeared before a judge wearing an orange jail jumpsuit, with visible stab wounds on her arms. The judge found probable cause for her detention and ordered that she be held without bond.
Her husband, a dentist at Crescent Lake Family Dentistry in St. Petersburg, was present in the courtroom and, at one point, covered his mouth as the charges were read.
According to St. Petersburg police, officers were called to a home on Tanglewood Drive on Tuesday afternoon for a report of a person bleeding. Investigators said the couple’s 16-year-old daughter had just returned home from school when she found her mother holding her 4-year-old brother in a bed.
Police said there was blood throughout the house. Cullom was taken to the hospital with multiple lacerations, which investigators later determined were self-inflicted and not life-threatening.
An autopsy revealed the child did not suffer stab wounds and died from suffocation, police said.
Back in court, the judge also granted a request for Cullom to have no contact with her teenage daughter.
Police have not released a motive in the case. Investigators confirmed a note was found, but declined to share details about its contents.
The investigation remains ongoing.
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