A woman visiting Minnesota with her daughter took a side trip to jail after police said she tried to kill the teenager in a lake. The fight started over the girl’s phone.
Jasmine Marie Laws, 35, was charged with attempted second-degree murder after authorities say she held her 15-year-old daughter underwater at Battle Lake in Otter Tail County. Court documents reviewed by reporters detail the incident that unfolded Sunday afternoon.
What the mother told deputies
Deputies spoke to her first. She told them she was lying on a pontoon when her daughter started hitting her with a towel. The mother said she threw the girl’s phone into the water in response.
The teen started punching and hitting her, Laws told police. She admitted to holding her daughter down by the nape of the neck at the water’s edge. Laws said the girl was submerged from the chest down, but her head and shoulders were not in the water.
She told police the girl was “never underwater for more than three seconds at a time,” though her head could have been submerged if a wave came in.
The suspect was released from the Otter Tail County Jail and ordered to have no contact with her daughter. She lives in Maryland.
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Witnesses and the teen tell a different story
When police spoke to the girl and other witnesses, they got a much different account. The teen told deputies that her mother threw the phone in the water, so she went in to retrieve it. An argument followed. The girl said Laws hit her first, so she pulled her mother’s hair.
As the fight escalated, the girl told police, Laws “tried to put her in headlock and flipped her, causing her neck to hit the dock.” The mother then allegedly pushed the girl into the water and held her down with her head fully submerged.
The girl said she could not breathe, and that if someone had not pulled Laws off her, she believed she would have drowned.
Witnesses who called 911 backed up the teenager’s version. They told police they initially thought the two were “play fighting,” but then saw Laws pull her daughter by the hair until her head was “fully submerged.” The witnesses lived nearby and ran over to pull Laws off the girl. They said they heard Laws yell, “I gave you life, I can f—ing end your life” while holding the girl’s head under the waves.
Police said the girl lay “non-responsive” with her eyes closed for a short time after being pulled from the water.
She was taken to a hospital for treatment.
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Authorities also spoke to the girl’s friend, who had come along on the trip. The friend said while the witnesses were getting Laws off the girl, she had to “physically pry” Laws’ hands off the girl’s hair.
The gap between what Laws said and what everyone else described is wide. It’s not unusual in domestic violence cases for the accused to minimize their own actions. But the presence of multiple independent witnesses who saw the same thing — and who intervened physically — makes the mother’s account harder to square with what actually happened at the lake that afternoon.
The charges and what comes next
Laws faces one count of attempted second-degree murder and three counts of domestic assault, one of which is a felony. She did not appear on the Otter Tail County Jail roster on Wednesday. Court documents show she was ordered to return to Minnesota for her next court appearance on Aug. 26.
The case hinges on whether a jury believes the mother’s version — that the girl was never fully underwater for more than a few seconds — or the witnesses and the teen, who described a deliberate attempt to hold the girl’s head under until she stopped breathing. The friend’s account of having to pry Laws’ hands off the girl’s hair adds weight to the prosecution’s argument that this was not a momentary loss of control.
For now, the 15-year-old is safe. The court order prohibits any contact between her and her mother. The next hearing will determine whether the case proceeds to trial.
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