Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Mom had stopped using medication, friends say

The mother accused of beating her two children to death with a baseball bat before trying to take her own life Tuesday has a history of mental instability and was prescribed anti-depressant medication after a delusional episode in spring 2002, friends and former neighbors said.

"If she was taking the medication she was fine and everything was great," said Yvette Weigold, who was godmother to Sylvia Ewing's two children. "But when she didn't she slept a lot and didn't come out."

Weigold said Ewing's husband, Daryl, said his wife stopped taking the medication when she and the children visited relatives in the Philippines in July.

Weigold and other former neighbors said even if Sylvia Ewing had some sort of a breakdown, they are still shocked to hear that their friend is accused of killing her own children, 4-year-old Julie and 8-year-old Phillip.

"She never raised one hand to those kids," friend Jenny Levin said.

Friend and former neighbor Lisa King said: "She was a stay-at-home mom, very pleasant, and someone you could leave your kids with. And that's the scariest part."

While unable to understand why and how a parent could kill their own children, they are telling their children, many of whom were friends with Julie and Phillip, that Sylvia Ewing was sick.

Weigold's daughter Lauryn, who was Phillip's best friend, said a counselor at school told her Wednesday that "sometimes if people aren't taking their medications their minds might be mentally ill, and they might do stuff."

Weigold said she noticed a change in her friend and neighbor when Ewing started attending a new church sometime in the last few years. Weigold and her neighbors did not know the name of the church, but they believe she did not attend it for long.

"She was getting confused about being saved, and the kids baptized and then she started on this whole Armageddon thing," Weigold said.

In the early morning of a spring day last year, Ewing went into her front yard and began screaming, Weigold said.

The commotion woke many in the quiet and friendly North Las Vegas neighborhood near the intersection of Coleman Street and Ann Road.

"She told my mom, 'He's up there. Look in the clouds. Jesus is coming,' " Weigold said.

Ewing's husband took her to a hospital where she stayed for a few days or possibly a week, Weigold and King said.

King, who lived next door to the Ewings at the time, said before that episode Sylvia Ewing "was completely normal."

King said she babysat Ewing's children the night her husband brought her home from the hospital.

"He said they put her on medication and everything would be OK," King said.

Weigold and Levin said Ewing told them she was taking anti-depressant medication. They did now know what those were.

"But she couldn't drink because of the medication," Weigold said.

The neighbors remained close after the spring-morning episode.

When Weigold's car broke down last summer in the Mojave Desert near Baker, Calif., the Ewings piled into their van and drove out to pick up their neighbors.

Then when Weigold was laying a new patio in her backyard this summer, Ewing "just showed up with gloves on" and helped, Weigold said.

And when Ewing was apparently having a bad day, Weigold would help out her friend.

"The kids would be outside alone and you knew she was in there sleeping. I would get them and feed until he got home," she said.

Weigold said she would then tell Ewing's husband, "You got to check her medicine."

In addition to their children being best friends, Weigold's and Ewing's birthdays were just a week apart. Weigold said Ewing will turn 40 in November.

"We were always really close to them," Weigold said. "It was like we were family."

When Ewing and her two children went to visit relatives in the Philippines in July, Weigold said her friend seemed fine.

"Before she went to the Philippines I thought she was better. I thought she was up," Weigold said.

Ewing is originally from the Philippines and met her husband Daryl while he was stationed there with the Navy, she said.

Daryl Ewing could not be reached for comment Wednesday, but Weigold said he told her that Sylvia Ewing stopped taking her medication when she left for the Philippines.

When Ewing and the children returned home in the first week of September they moved into the Emerald Suites, an apartment complex across from an entrance to Nellis Air Force Base at 4555 Las Vegas Boulevard North, which rents apartments by the week.

The Ewings were staying at the Emerald Suites because their new home, which was larger than the one on Ash Meadows Way they had sold, wasn't finished yet.

The temporary housing hiccup didn't seem to be too much of a problem for the family, Weigold said. Two weeks ago Weigold's children spent the night with the Ewings, and everything seemed OK.

"My daughter said Sylvia was fine that day, she was playing in the pool," she said.

Then last Thursday, Ewing and her children visited their old neighborhood to bring candy they had bought in the Philippines to their friends.

"I thought she looked like crap, physically," Weigold said.

Weigold said that while she knew Ewing got depressed at times, she never thought Ewing might hurt her children.

"I knew she was depressed from time to time," she said. "But if I had thought it was that bad I would have gone and taken those kids away."

According to police, about an hour after Ewing's husband left for work at 2:30 a.m. Tuesday, the mother woke her children and went to a nearby Wal-Mart where she bought a baseball bat.

Sometime after returning to their one-bedroom apartment in the Emerald Suites, Ewing allegedly beat her children to death with a bat. Then at 8:30 a.m. Ewing walked from the apartment complex to Las Vegas Boulevard and stepped in front of a tractor-trailer.

The children were found by their father after he returned home from work around 3:30 p.m., police said.

Weigold said she heard about the murders Wednesday morning and called Daryl Ewing to see if it was true.

"Then I went to the back yard and started screaming," she said.

Daryl Ewing, a truck driver believed to be in his 40s, told Weigold he wasn't sure what was going on when he arrived home.

"He said the kids were just laying there. He wanted to know why the kids were sleeping in the middle of the day and where she was," Weigold said.

The father called police after finding a note left by his wife, which made him realize his children were dead, she said.

That note is also what has led police to believe Sylvia Ewing killed her children.

Lt. Tom Monahan of Metro's homicide unit declined to what was in the note because it will be used as evidence against Ewing. The note was just a few lines long, he said.

Officials said Wednesday that Ewing has regained consciousness and her condition is improving. She was taken off a ventilator and was breathing on her own. If detectives do file charges while she is still in the hospital, police will guard her to make sure she doesn't flee.

Monahan said detectives aren't in a hurry to file homicide charges against the mother because " we know she's not going to walk away."

On Tuesday detectives collected evidence at the family's apartment and on Wednesday they attended the autopsies of Phillip and Julie.

"As the days progress, we're going to try to get a better understanding as to who (Sylvia Ewing) is," Monahan said, adding that a federal medical privacy law passed earlier this year is making it difficult for police to get information about Ewing's mental health prior to the killings.

He said "there are indicators that she suffered from depression," but, he added, that's no excuse for what she allegedly did to her children.

"Do you ever get depressed? ... Do you ever fight with your husband? ... Does it make you want to kill children?" Monahan asked.

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