Ga. mom who drowned 1-year-old daughter in pond found not guilty by reason of insanity

SANDY SPRINGS, Ga. (TCN) — A woman who was charged with murder for drowning her toddler in a pond two years ago was found not guilty by reason of insanity.

Judge Sukura Ingram rendered the decision in a judgment published April 18, saying Asia Calabrese-Lewis was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, “mania with psychotic features at the time of the offense.” Calabrese-Lewis had been charged with two counts of murder and one count of first-degree cruelty to children in connection with the death of 22-month-old Nirvana Oliver.

Ingram noted in her judgment that Calabrese-Lewis is currently competent to stand trial. Ingram ordered Calabrese-Lewis to stay in the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities for an evaluation.

On May 11, 2023, just before 7 p.m., Sandy Springs Police Department officers received a call about a disturbance near 2 Concourse Parkway and found Calabrese-Lewis “having some type of episode.” The girl’s father arrived at the scene, and when he asked Calabrese-Lewis where she was, she said their daughter “was deceased in a pool.”

Officers searched pools and water in the area and eventually located Oliver. Paramedics rushed her to the hospital, where she was pronounced deceased. Police arrested Calabrese-Lewis and booked her into the Fulton County Jail.

According to her affidavit, on May 11, 2023, at 6:12 p.m., surveillance video showed Calabrese-Lewis waking with her daughter down an embankment to a retention pond at 2 Concourse Parkway. She and Oliver went into the water for about six minutes, then Calabrese-Lewis came out of the water alone. Sandy Springs Police responded to the area after getting a call that a woman was “naked and rubbing up against motor vehicles in the parking deck.” When officers made contact with her, she said her daughter had “drowned and is in the bottom of a swimming pool.”

The fire department and EMS arrived and assisted in searching for Oliver, who was located in the retention pond.

Ingram wrote in her decision that at the time of the killing, Calabrese-Lewis “did not have the mental capacity to distinguish between right and wrong and that she acted because of a delusional compulsion (as a result of her mental illness) which overmastered her will to resist committing the crime.”

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