{"id":426583,"date":"2026-10-13T13:42:53","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T13:42:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/426583\/"},"modified":"2026-10-13T13:42:53","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T13:42:53","slug":"st-pete-mother-accused-of-killing-4-year-old-son-to-appear-in-court-for-pretrial-hearing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/426583\/","title":{"rendered":"St. Pete mother accused of killing 4-year-old son to appear in court for pretrial hearing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Diana Cullom was charged with first-degree murder back in January.<\/p>\n

PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 Diana Cullom, who was charged with first-degree murder<\/a> in the death of her 4-year-old son back in January, will appear in court today for a pretrial hearing.<\/p>\n

The woman was arrested on Jan. 27 after St. Petersburg police responded to a home on Tanglewood Drive Northeast for reports of someone bleeding.<\/p>\n


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When police arrived, they found a 16-year-old girl saying that when she got home from school, she found her mother holding her 4-year-old brother in a bed. Police said there was blood at the scene and throughout the house.<\/p>\n

Both Cullom, 44, and her son, Finley, were taken to Bayfront Hospital. Police said she had “multiple lacerations,” but that her injuries were not life-threatening.<\/p>\n

Finley died from his injuries.<\/p>\n

Police initially believed the child had been stabbed. However, the medical examiner learned he had been suffocated with a plastic bag. Investigators say Cullom had self-inflicted stab wounds.<\/p>\n

On Jan. 28, Cullom was released from the hospital overnight and charged with first-degree murder in the death of her son. She has been held in the Pinellas County Jail without bond.<\/p>\n

A judge deemed Cullom incompetent to stand trial on April 22. She was found competent to proceed in August.<\/p>\n

She is set to appear in court at 8:30 a.m. The state is seeking the death penalty<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Diana Cullom was charged with first-degree murder back in January. PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 Diana Cullom, who was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":426584,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-426583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426583","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=426583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426583\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/426584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}