Royal Oak — When Samantha Booth arrived at a Royal Oak home to babysit a 2-year-old girl for a weekend while her mother went to New York to visit family, everything seemed normal, the child’s mother said.
Booth had known the girl since she was 6 weeks old and nannied for her several times a week through December 2024, then a few times a month after that, the mother said during testimony in Booth’s preliminary examination Friday in Royal Oak’s 44th District Court. District Court Judge Andrew Kowalkowski has ordered that the names of civilian witnesses not be used in the media.
The girl’s mom said she was friends with Booth, that she considered her family. Booth told her the morning of Oct. 24 as the mom was preparing to leave that she was excited about plans to move to Oregon, but that she was tired that morning and planned to just relax as she watched the toddler.
But when the mother couldn’t get a hold of Booth later that day, she said she started to panic. She called her dad, David Ong, who had gone over to visit his grandchild and give Booth a brief break earlier that afternoon, and asked him to go over. Ong told her everything was fine when he had been there, and to wait.
The mother asked him 15 minutes later, when she still couldn’t get a hold of Booth, to go check again, she testified. He agreed to do so.
When she couldn’t get a hold of Ong, she said she became even more panicked. Her sister sent her husband to the house to check on the situation. When he entered the home while on speaker phone, he found Booth singing or chanting in the basement, a crying toddler hiding in the basement laundry room and Ong’s bloody body on the basement floor.
Booth, 35, is accused of fatally stabbing Ong, 83, with a screwdriver. She is charged with first-degree murder, second-degree child abuse, felonious assault and three counts of resisting and obstructing police. She was sent to stand trial on all charges Friday.
Royal Oak Police Officer Austin Plitz testified the house was in disarray and he found three screwdrivers near Ong’s body. There was a white cord wrapped around Ong’s neck and his head was covered, Plitz said. His pants were pulled halfway down his legs.
Oakland County Assistant Prosecutor Shellbe Sanborn said this crime took time to commit, as Ong was stabbed more than 40 times in the head and seven times in the chest area.
“There had to have been a moment where she was afforded a second chance, as case law describes, to know what she was doing before she did it,” Sanborn said. “There was some period of time for her to reflect on this.”
Booth’s attorney, James Amberg, said Booth was “clearly going through some kind of mental health situation.”
“She went downstairs with (the child) for some reason to get away. I don’t know what it is, I don’t know if it was a rational reason,” Amberg said. “My client was clearly insane at that time.”
Amberg said there is no evidence of first-degree murder or premeditation, as the crime looks like a “frenzy situation” where Booth was in some sort of manic episode.
“There was not one scintilla of evidence that suggested there was a moment in time where there was a cooldown period,” Amberg said.
Royal Oak Police Detective Keith Bierenga said he did not find any evidence that would indicate that Booth planned the killing, and added that Booth took multiple selfies of the child and herself afterward while she was covered in blood.
Sanborn said the photos showed a lack of remorse, with Booth “so giddy and smiling, covered in blood, standing next to a petrified-looking (2-year-old) girl in this home.”
Kowalkowski said Ong’s manner of death allowed enough time to give Booth a chance to think about her actions and said Amberg’s argument about her mental health is a question of fact for the jury to decide on.
Neighbor says Booth’s actions ‘like a horror movie’
When the child’s uncle walked toward the basement, he said Booth asked him “who the (expletive) are you?” She came up the stairs and he used the child’s wooden high chair to defend himself against her, he testified.
He went into the basement and saw Booth, covered in blood. He used the high chair to fend her off, striking her in the chest and pushing her to the ground, he testified. He found the toddler hiding in the basement laundry room, between a piece of mechanical equipment and the washer and dryer, and grabbed her and ran out of the house.
“I believe her behavior was completely unnatural based upon her persistence and her pursuit of us,” the uncle said, agreeing that he had told police in October that it was like she was possessed.
When the uncle left the house, he headed straight for a neighbor’s home, where a bonfire was underway. The neighbor testified he heard someone yelling for help and saw the uncle and a red-headed little girl.
“He came running up to us, basically face-to-face, saying this lady killed my father-in-law,” the neighbor said. “Then five seconds later here comes a stumbling lady and it all kind of hit me, ‘oh shoot this might be real.'”
He said the woman, whom he identified as Booth, stopped about 10 feet away from him.
“She started speaking gibberish and started smashing her fists on the ground,” the neighbor said. “It was like a horror movie.”
Defense attorney says Booth was in a mental health crisis
Amberg asked multiple police officers who arrested Booth — who was naked, making strange statements and acting out sexually — if her behavior appeared to be the result of a mental health crisis.
Royal Oak police Sgt. Josh Little said as he tried to arrest Booth, she yelled “grandpa” and “daddy” multiple times, and at one point she said, “(expletive) kill him now.”
“Knowing my client didn’t have anything in her system except caffeine, did it look like she was having a mental health event?” Amberg asked.
“Yes,” Little said.
Royal Oak Police Detective Dan Pelletier said when he spoke to Booth at the jail, Booth’s demeanor changed when he asked her if she had a second phone number. He asked her for her email address and instead of the conversational tone she had used previously, she screamed it.
“She put her hands out in front of her and started advancing toward me,” Pelletier said. “She started thrusting her pelvis and hips toward me. It was clear she was sexually aroused.”
After Ong’s murder, the mother of the 2-year-old said her daughter became quieter than usual and began to have nightmares. She has been diagnosed with acute PTSD and is in trauma-based play therapy.
“She would wake up screaming and I would go and get her and like brace myself for what she was about to tell me,” the mother said.
kberg@detroitnews.com
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Royal Oak nanny accused of killing grandpa looked like ‘a horror movie,’ neighbor says
Reporting by Kara Berg, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
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By Kara Berg, The Detroit News | USA TODAY Network
