{"id":231600,"date":"2026-04-14T18:35:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T18:35:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/231600\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T18:35:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T18:35:12","slug":"florida-to-seek-death-penalty-for-st-pete-mom-accused-of-killing-4-year-old-son-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/231600\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida to seek death penalty for St. Pete mom accused of killing 4-year-old son"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The state of Florida intends to seek the death penalty for the St. Pete mother accused of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/news\/articles\/4-old-boy-suffocated-death-221918516.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:suffocating her four-year-old son;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;suffocating her four-year-old son&quot;}\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">suffocating her four-year-old son<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">A Florida state attorney filed on April 1 a notice of intent to seek the death penalty for 43-year-old Diana Cullom.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">This comes ahead of a status hearing set for Monday, April 20, where a judge will check on the progress of Cullom&#8217;s court-ordered competency evaluation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Cullom is charged with first-degree murder in her son&#8217;s death.<\/p>\n<p>Diana Cullom charged with murder of 4-year-old son<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">St. Pete police officers responded to a call about a person bleeding on the afternoon of Jan. 27,<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">At the scene, officials said that they spoke to the 16-year-old sister of 4-year-old Finley Cullom, who said she got home from school and found her mother, Diana, holding him in bed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Initially, police said that based on the evidence, Cullom stabbed her child. They provided a later update saying there were no stab wounds and that medical examiners determined he was suffocated with a plastic bag.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Diana Cullom did reportedly have self-inflicted stab wounds.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The 16-year-old sister also found a note in the house, which police believe was left by Cullom.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;She found a note in the house, so we believe that the scene is contained within the home,&#8221; St. Pete Police Chief Anthony Holloway said. &#8220;We don&#8217;t believe there is any danger to anyone in the community.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">In her <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wtsp.com\/article\/news\/crime\/st-petersburg-mother-court-first-degree-murder-death-4-year-old-son\/67-0c62c3fc-af3e-484a-a89d-6af9c21b2e27\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:first court appearance;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;first court appearance&quot;}\" class=\"link \">first court appearance<\/a>, a judge ordered that Cullom be held without bond.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The Cullom family owns the Crescent Lake Family Dentistry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The state of Florida intends to seek the death penalty for the St. Pete mother accused of suffocating&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188381,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[408,67373,103634,202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":{"0":"post-231600","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-death-penalty","9":"tag-finley-cullom","10":"tag-florida-state-attorney","11":"tag-st-pete","12":"tag-st-pete-headlines","13":"tag-st-pete-news","14":"tag-st-petersburg","15":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","16":"tag-st-petersburg-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231600\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}