Sickening courtroom act of polygamist mom who stabbed her baby to death before leaving chilling confession note

Daily Mail, UK/November 13, 2024

By Brittany Chain

A young mom living in a polygamist cult with her husband and two other wives who is accused of stabbing her baby to death laughed in the courtroom as her friend testified about their alternate lifestyle.

Chloe Driver, 24, is on trial in Georgia accused of murdering 13-month-old Hannah in December 2020.

She does not contest that she killed the toddler and wrote disturbing letters confessing to the crime, but has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

As her friend Jason Spillars, who is in custody on unrelated charges, detailed to the court the group's strange beliefs, Driver buried her head in her hand in an effort to hide her laugh.

The corners of her lips twitched as he made reference to a 'nasty' and 'dirty' home. She quickly covered her mouth and looked away to regain her composure.

Driver was 'one of three wives' who had 'radical views' and 'alternative religious names they assigned to each other.'

She was just 20 years old when she killed her daughter. She met her husband, Brian Joyce, when she was 17 and he was 38, the court heard.

He was known as 'Z' or 'Benyamin', and created contracts for each of his young wives and 'indoctrinated' Driver into his 'whacky beliefs.'

The polygamist group did not believe in modern medicine, and little Hannah did not have a birth certificate, nor had she ever been to a doctor.

The three wives and their husband 'participated in alternative healing practises like drinking their own urine and sensory deprivation,' the court heard.

Spillars was asked about the bizarre practices on the stand on Wednesday. He was inside the home alongside Driver's husband and two other wives when she killed Hannah.

He did not find the group strange, and was interested in learning about the dynamic of plural marriage. He, too, had been drinking his urine for the 'health benefits.'

'I've been drinking my urine daily for four years,' he said. 'It was [traditional] in the past when people knew their own bodies. Now we've become so deranged and deluded and essentially live in a psychotic society of mental illness and addiction to alcohol, toxic food that we've become so separate from what it means to be healthy.'

As her friend Jason Spillars, who is in custody on unrelated charges, detailed to the court the strange beliefs of the group, Driver buried her head in her hand in an effort to hide her laugh

He described the practise as 'urine therapy' and urged those in the courtroom to look further into the benefits.  

While Spillars often discussed their alternative way of life with Joyce, who he refers to as Z, he said these matters were never discussed with the wives.

'These are women,' he said. 'They want to run and laugh and be silly on the beach.

'Me and Z are sitting here discussing doctor level quantum physics, but these women don't have these conversations. They play with the baby and they do what women do and they be silly and smile and laugh.  

'I'm not having these conversations with these women. I don't even know if they're capable of that. It's not an insult, it's a matter of fact. That's not their role anyway.'

Spillars said Driver had began suffering from mental health problems during the time he knew her and would attack her husband and the other wives, but he insisted she never hurt her baby.

'She would lose it. She would start shaking, attacking Z, the other girls, me. Never the baby, though. Never. I wouldn't have tolerated that and I don't think Z would have either.

'She would get this look in her eye like she was absent, she would start screaming.  You would ask her about it later and she would say she doesn't even remember these things.'

Driver's defense is that she was driven to insanity during her time in the cult, and therefore can't be held criminally responsible for her actions.

One of the frantic 911 calls played in court was made by Jessica, the second wife of the group.

The polygamist group did not believe in modern medicine, and little Hannah did not have a birth certificate, nor had she ever been to a doctor

She provided Driver's name, and told the dispatch officer 'I think a baby just died, and I think a woman is responsible for it.'

After several minutes on the line, dispatch officer Caylee McNealy said: 'I don't know what's going on, I need to know what's going on. You're not telling me any information, can you tell me how the baby is doing?'

Jessica answered: 'I don't believe she is breathing... I believe she was slit across the throat.'

She told authorities that Driver was still with her baby, as was Joyce. In a separate 911 call, distressing screams and sobs were audible in the background as an officer was told 'she just killed a baby.'

'She's 13 months old. She looks dead.'

The crime occurred inside the home of a friend of Driver's husband

Police allege Hannah suffered multiple stab wounds to the neck. Driver then stabbed herself in the neck.

She'd gotten the knife from the kitchen while her sister wives were napping and her husband was distracted.

Driver proceeded to lock herself and Hannah inside an upstairs bedroom, where she committed the crime.

In a distressing letter revealed in court, Driver wrote: 'He didn't do it, I did it.

'I was going insane and no longer wanted to be with his friends but kept coming back for him. I only wanted my baby and husband but he refused.'

Katie Gropper, for the state, said: 'She wanted him, she wanted to be with him. She was the first of this group of three wives and the two others came after her. The evidence will be clear that she wanted to be with him and he was never going to give up this polygamist cult lifestyle that he wanted.'

In the weeks leading up to Hannah's death, Driver had searched the internet to lean 'how to snap a neck', and researched the phrase 'killing somebody to save them.'

Prosecutors maintain that she was not mentally ill when she chose to kill her baby, and was instead motivated by her desire to be alone with her husband and Hannah.

'That wasn't an option, so she picked a different one,' Gropper said.

Driver kept her head low and looked on the verge of tears as certain details were heard in court.

But at other moments, she stared coldly ahead, unresponsive as chilling details of Hannah's death were shared.

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