Battle Lake, Minnesota- A Maryland woman is facing attempted murder charges after witnesses say she held her 15-year-old daughter’s head underwater at a Minnesota lake while screaming, “I gave you life, I can end your life.”
Jasmine Marie Laws, 35, was charged with attempted second-degree murder and three counts of domestic assault — including one felony — following the incident at Battle Lake in Otter Tail County on Sunday afternoon. She has since been released from Otter Tail County Jail and ordered to have no contact with her daughter.
According to court documents, Laws and her daughter got into a physical altercation aboard a pontoon boat. Laws told deputies that her daughter hit her with a towel first, and that she responded by throwing the girl’s phone into the water. She admitted to holding her daughter by the nape of the neck near the water’s edge but claimed the girl’s head was never fully submerged.
Witnesses and the victim told investigators a very different story. The girl said Laws struck her first, and that during the struggle, her mother put her in a headlock, flipped her so her neck hit the dock, then pushed her into the water and held her head fully under the surface. The teenager told deputies she could not breathe and believed she would have drowned had bystanders not intervened.
Nearby residents who called 911 said they initially thought the two were play-fighting — until they saw Laws dragging her daughter by the hair with her head completely submerged. They ran over and physically pulled Laws off the girl. One witness said she had to “physically pry” Laws’ hands out of the teenager’s hair. During the struggle, witnesses reported hearing Laws scream the threat about ending her daughter’s life.
After being pulled from the water, the girl was described as lying non-responsive with her eyes closed before she was taken to a hospital for treatment. Laws, a Maryland resident, is required to return to Minnesota for a court appearance on August 26.
