Murder accused Megan Prins tells court she sat with son's body all night and tried to kill herself

After Megan Prins suffocated her seven-year-old son Sloan with a pillow‚ she sat with his body for an entire night while trying to take her own life‚ the Durban Magistrate's court heard on Friday

What police believe befell Sloan Prins in his final moments was detailed in an affidavit by officer Strinivasan Munsamy‚ put before the court on Friday during Prins’s application for bail.

The 35-year-old mother was arrested in an Umhlanga guesthouse in June after the owner came upon the scene.

Prins has been in custody for nearly five months. Her bail hearing was delayed while she underwent psychiatric observation in Fort Napier Hospital in Pietermaritzburg.

Munsamy detailed how Prins had given the boy sleeping tablets after they’d checked into the guesthouse.

“She sent an SMS to a friend and informed her that she had given her son sleeping tablets and that she was going to commit suicide. She used a pillow and her body and suffocated her son until he was no longer responsive‚” his affidavit reads.

“She then tried several times during the night to commit suicide‚ but her attempts were unsuccessful.”

Munsamy described how Prins had asked for a late checkout and when that window lapsed‚ the guesthouse owner had grown concerned. She had raised the alarm after Prins had called her to the room.

In support of her bid for bail‚ Prins described herself as a battered woman suffering from depression.

In an affidavit‚ she described her precarious financial position and that the bank had threatened to foreclose on her Morningside flat.

“I felt completely helpless and abandoned. Everything that I tried to do to maintain my child and without the assistance of [her ex-boyfriend and father of Sloan] was in vain as we were about to lose our home‚” it reads.

“At that point my resources were depleted and I could not even depend on [the child's father] to fulfil his role as a father financially and emotionally‚” she said‚ providing a window into her emotional state.

She asked to be allowed to grieve with her family while awaiting trial.

Magistrate Mahomed Motala ruled that Prins be released on R3‚000 bail and that she report twice a week to the Mayville police station.

She is expected to appear in court again on November 30.