He didn't want to turn 18. His mother made sure he never would

Her son said he did not want to turn 18.

So his mother promised him he never would.

The night before his birthday, she set out to keep that promise.

At 4 AM she calls 911. Calm. Annoyed.Her son won't stop breathing.

Her name is Katie Lee. The deadline was his birthday. The promise was a knife.

"We were going to leave yesterday and it got way out of hand."

When she says "leave," she doesn't mean the apartment.

She means life.

The operator tries to keep up.

Is he asking you to kill him?

Yeah.That's what I've been doing for a while.

I can't get him to stop breathing.

She says it the way you'd report a broken appliance.

Like her son's heartbeat is an inconvenience.

Police are already racing to the apartment.

The operator keeps her talking.

How old is your son?

He's going to be 18 tomorrow. But he didn't want to turn 18.

She calls it a murder pact. Her word.

Not the prosecutor's. Hers.

She would kill him. Then kill herself.

So her son would never have to turn 18 on February 22nd.

The operator asks where she cut him.

"It was only supposed to be one."

"How many are there?"

"Three."

She cut his arm twice. Then she sliced his throat.

The operator asks why.

Katie answers with five words that define the case.

"I didn't do this out of hatred."

"It was out of love."

"The world is not going to be okay for him."

She says it with total calm. Total certainty.

Like she's explaining something simple to someone too slow to follow.

Police reach Baypoint Apartments.

Katie opens the door.

Covered in blood.

A kitchen knife raised near her shoulder.

Officers tell her to drop it.

She doesn't. They tase her.

She throws the knife into the hallway.

Then she lunges for it again.

They tase her a second time.

That's how they finally get the cuffs on.

In handcuffs, she says one more thing.

"You were supposed to kill me so I could be with him."

Inside, officers find Austin Dean Pickart.Age seventeen.

In his bed. Blood everywhere.

His throat cut open.

One day before his eighteenth birthday.