A Brockton mother has been arrested and charged with murder after her two young sons were found Monday stabbed to death in the family’s Brockton apartment.

Latarsha Sanders, 43, was arraigned in Brockton District Court Tuesday on two counts of murder. She pleaded not guilty and was held without bail, according to the Plymouth 

The arrest of 43-year-old mother and the horrific crime that occurred in the third-floor apartment of 247 Prospect St. has devastated neighbors and shocked the wider Brockton community. The murders follow the charging last week of two sisters in nearby East Bridgwater for allegedly torturing an 8-year-old boy and 5-year-old girl in a voodoo ritual.

Here’s what we know so far about the slayings.

The crime

Brockton police received a 911 call for a medical emergency at 247 Prospect St. just after noon on Monday, according to the district attorney’s office.

The Boston Globe reports it was Sanders who asked a neighbor to call 911, though she didn’t say why.

When first responders arrived at the scene, they found Sanders outside the home, “distraught and combative,” the DA’s office said.

She was taken by ambulance for medical evaluation, and a neighbor told the Globe that Sanders was screaming and kicking when she was taken away on a stretcher.

Officers meanwhile went into her apartment on the third floor, alerted by a neighbor that children lived with Sanders.

“There, they found the two boys in beds in two separate rooms,” the DA’s office said. “The children had each been stabbed multiple times and were determined to be deceased on scene.”

The DA’s office said Sanders made statements that “could be construed as admissions of guilt” and told police Monday her son’s were killed as part of a “ritualistic incident.”

Authorities allege the mother cleaned the boys, placed them in their beds, and mopped up the crime scene after she killed them.

She never sought medical care for her sons, the DA’s office said.

Police found a kitchen knife in a sink in the apartment, which they believe to be the murder weapon.

The victims

Stuffed animals were left at a makeshift memorial for the boys on Tuesday near the home where they were killed, according to The Brockton Enterprise.

According to the Globe, 8-year-old Edson had been stabbed 50 times, and his younger brother was found underneath a blanket with a bandage on his neck.

The Enterprise reports the 8-year-old was named for his father, Edson Brito.

According to the newspaper, the 36-year-old lived in the third-floor apartment where the boys were killed until January 2017, when he was arrested on drug charges, disturbing the peace, and resisting arrest.

The father of the two boys has been held in Plymouth County Jail since his arrest and is due back in court March 8, the Enterprise reports.

According to the Globe, Sanders sought two restraining orders against Brito in 2014, alleging he was an abusive alcoholic. Brito was also arrested multiple times for assaulting either Sanders or her teenage son, the newspaper reports.

The DA’s office said Brito has been informed of his sons’ deaths.

Ernst Blanc, a neighbor, told the Globe he’d seen two young children playing ball, tag, and riding bikes in the yard behind their apartment, as well the yard behind his own house.

He told the newspaper at times he’d seen a man and woman with the children but that he’d never seen anything of concern.

Prosecutors have not found any sign that the Department of Children and Families was involved with Sanders and the two boys, according to the Globe.

Blanc told the newspaper the last time he saw the boys was about two weeks ago when they were getting on the school bus in the morning.

“I never thought that could happen,” he said. “I don’t know why. They were kids.”

Brockton Public Schools said in a statement the entire school community is “shocked and saddened” by the deaths of the two boys:

We grieve with their surviving family members and friends and offer our deepest condolences and prayers. School district crisis teams were assembled and were working with the affected school first thing this morning to offer support, grief counseling and any other assistance that may be needed, for as long as needed, for students and staff. Our Brockton Public Schools teachers and professionals are well trained to support our students. We are always thankful for the support of the Brockton community, especially during this time of loss.

The motive

Plymouth District Attorney Timothy Cruz told reporters Tuesday it was not clear what caused the 43-year-old mother to attack her own children with a knife, according to the Globe.

“We believe, based upon her comments, that she was involved in some sort of rituals that she believed in,” Cruz said. “Suffice it to say, it’s something she referred to throughout her life to other people in her family, or at least for the last couple of years. … We don’t have a lot of clarity to a lot of the things she was saying at this point.”

Prosecutors said at first Sanders told authorities her 16-year-old daughter and the girl’s father were responsible for the murders. Then she told police that at some point on Saturday she decided it was necessary to perform a “ritual incident” on her 8-year-old son.

She allegedly killed her younger son when she thought the ritual on the older boy failed, according to the Globe.

“As the officers continued to interview her in regards to the ritual, Ms. Sanders stated that no one was supposed to get hurt and then admitted that she only killed one baby,” police wrote in a probable cause arrest report, according to The Brockton Enterprise.

Investigators have not found any record of Sanders being diagnosed with a mental illness, and it is her first time being prosecuted for a crime, according to the Globe.

Ixer Alfred, the father of Sanders’ teenage daughter, told the Globe the Brockton woman’s “erratic” behavior goes back 20 years, saying the mother of his daughter had “anger problems” when they dated for two years in the late 1990s.

Sanders’ mother, Earline, told state police her daughter had refused to get help with what she considered to be severe mental illness, the newspaper reports. The mother described her daughter as “mentally unstable and crazy,” obsessed with the “Illuminati,” and said the 43-year-old spied on neighbors using a baby monitor.

On Friday, Sanders allegedly told her mother she “could not stand [her older son] any more and threatened to kill him and put his body in a freezer,” according to the Globe. The next day she brought her boys to her mother’s home, talked about “sacrificing humans so she could move up in the world,” and said she would be taking them to the hospital to get treatment for the flu.

She left her daughter behind, and did not return as planned on Sunday to pick her up, according to the Globe. Instead, she showed up at her mother’s house on Monday about an hour and a half before the bodies of her children would be found by police.

The newspaper reports Sanders, eyes “black” and “glassy,” accused her mother of hitting her and killing her father.

“No one else would do this but her,” the boys’ grandmother told the police, according to the Enterprise.

During her arraignment, Sanders’ attorney, Joseph Krowski Jr., asked in court for bail to be set without prejudice so that a full bail argument could take place in the future, saying he hadn’t had time to fully review the case ahead of the arraignment, according to the Enterprise.

Krowski did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Boston.com.

Vin Lalli, a neighbor who has lived on Prospect Street for 40 years, told the Globe he was stunned by the killings. Sanders didn’t appear to work and seemed to mostly stay at home with her kids, he told the newspaper.

“I never see any family members over there,” Lalli said. “They don’t really have company. They’re kind of by themselves.”