Judgment for woman who tried to drown two girls by throwing them off a bridge

“Do you want to go to heaven?”

It was the last question a young girl heard before she was thrown into a river, dressed in her princess dress and school shoes.

According to court documents, she was standing with another girl on a bridge over the Georges River in Sydney’s south-west in September 2023 when Hoda Elabady popped the question.

“No, I have a bright future,” the child replied, revealing her dream of becoming a police officer when she grows up.

Elabady then picked her up and threw her into the water 1.8 meters under the bridge, the court was told.

The 39-year-old then asked the second girl if she wanted to “go to God” before throwing her off the bridge as well.

She was arraigned in the NSW District Court today after pleading not guilty to two counts of attempting to drown the girls with intent to murder.

Elabady could not be held responsible for her actions due to her serious mental illness, her lawyer previously argued.

She suffers from schizophrenia and experienced acute psychosis, experiencing hallucinations that told her to kill the girls and commit suicide.

Elabady had watched from above, anger on her face, as the two girls struggled to stay above the water, Judge Huw Baker said.

“Please let us go back,” one of the girls shouted.

Instead, the woman tried to kill herself, suffering significant injuries to her legs and lower body, the court was told.

Standing on something submerged in the river, with nothing but a stick to help them float, the girls hugged each other and tried to signal for help.

A passerby finally heard their calls around noon and pulled them from the water before taking them to hospital, Judge Baker said.

“(We) acknowledge the bravery of the two young girls who, for a very terrifying two hours, lay in the waters of the Georges River in what can only be described as the most horrific and terrifying of conditions,” he said.

The judge ruled that Elabady had attempted to drown the children, but could not be held criminally responsible for her actions due to her mental illness.

She is believed to have lived with an untreated mental disability since she was 17, according to mental health experts quoted in court.

Elabady’s mental health deteriorated in the months before the incident, the court was told.

She began telling others that she had spoken to an angel and one day said that “evil had touched me” before revealing a spot on her thigh.

One of the specialists had ‘absolute medical confidence’. She didn’t know what she had done was wrong, Judge Baker noted.

She currently shows no obvious symptoms of psychosis and he said that, with continued treatment, she would not pose a risk to herself or the community.

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