Police found the girls, ages 3 and 1, unconscious at the home on Shenandoah Drive around 4:50 p.m. Tuesday. They were pronounced dead at the scene.
Police say 27-year-old Naomi Elkins drowned the children and the 1-year-old had also been stabbed. Elkins was taken into custody at the scene.
She is charged with two counts of murder, possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, and unlawful possession of a weapon.
Yehoshua Brodsky is the director of family services for Chai Lifeline, which also responded to the scene with their crisis and bereavement team.
"This is a tragedy that was we've never encountered and so our response also needed to be not just in terms of just the immediate community, the immediate neighborhood, but as well as the community at large," Brodsky said.
Elkins briefly appeared virtually in an Ocean County courtroom on Wednesday afternoon.
In a letter posted on "The Lakewood Scoop," a relative said the mother has a history of mental illness -- specifically psychosis.
"There simply are no words to describe the shock and pain," the relative said in the letter. "The mother of the girls that committed this unthinkable act had a history of mental illness, specifically psychosis, though she was doing much better over the last year or so."
The relative went on to say in the letter that, "Apparently she tragically experienced some kind of psychotic episode without any warning signs at all."
Chai Lifeline's trauma and crisis interventionists are available. They can be reached at (855)-3- CRISIS or 855-327-4747.
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