General Sessions Judge L. Lambert Ryan today agreed to order the mental evaluation for Shanynthia Gardner, 29.
She is accused of cutting the throats of her three daughters and one son, all younger than 5, on July 1. Her 7-year-old son escaped the attack in a suburban Memphis apartment.
Gardner was not present during a brief court hearing. She is being treated at the Memphis Mental Health Institute, where she was taken after a court hearing last Tuesday in which she did not answer questions from the judge.
Her lawyer, Craig Morton, said the case could be prolonged by the evaluation. He said Gardner is not a violent person.
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"She suffers from what I consider a mental disability and was not aware of the consequences of her actions," Morton said.
The Memphis Mental Health Institute is a state psychiatric hospital where most patients have "a severe and persistent mental illness and are hospitalized on an emergency, involuntary basis," according to a state website.
If mental health experts find that she did not know the consequences of her actions or understand that killing her children was wrong, then that would be grounds for an insanity defense, Morton said.
Sheriff's officials say Gardner cut her children's throats at her apartment in a gated community in unincorporated Shelby County. She acknowledged killing them in a phone conversation to their father, Martin Gardner, court documents say.