LITTLE ROCK — The Arkansas Parole Board is recommending commutation of the life sentence of a woman convicted of drowning her 2-year-old son.
The board's recommendation released Thursday is to commute the sentence of 68-year-old Freida Phillips. The recommendation now goes to the governor.
Phillips was convicted in Clark County in 1986 in the drowning death of her son, David. She testified that she put the child in a bathtub and that the next thing she remembered was seeing the boy under water. A psychologist and a psychiatrist testified that Phillips was severely depressed with psychosis and unable to tell right from wrong.
She initially called police and reported her son missing, but eventually led officers to a church campground near Arkadelphia where the boy's body was found in a cabin.