Philadelphia mom accused of killing her 2 children in Florida

A Philadelphia woman is accused of killing her two children while visiting family in South Florida.

The two children were found dead at a home in Miramar, which is near Fort Lauderdale, on Wednesday. Their mother, 40-year-old Sophia Hines, of Philadelphia's Frankford section, was arrested and charged early Thursday with two counts of premeditated murder, according to police and court records.

Officers went to the home about 5:20 p.m. Wednesday, after someone reported a medical emergency involving a baby and toddler, the Miami Herald reported.

Emergency responders performed CPR but the children, a 7-month-old boy and a 3-year-old girl, were pronounced dead at the scene, according to the newspaper. Police said investigators suspected foul play in their deaths.

Hines confessed to suffocating the children with a bedsheet, police told the Herald. The children showed no other signs of injury.

Hines had been visiting Florida from Philadelphia for the past week. Authorities have not said whether the children had the same father, and no motive for the killings was immediately apparent.

"The defendant gave no explanation for her actions," a police report read, according to Florida news reports.

CBS Miami reported that Hines called the family member she and the children had been visiting about 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, and told her she had "come home now." When that relative arrived at the residence, she found the children unresponsive on a bed.

One neighbor told the Herald nothing seemed amiss when she saw the children on Wednesday.

"They seemed happy, like there was nothing wrong with them," Janae Greenway said. "They seemed like they were taken care of."

Another neighbor told NBC's Miami affiliate that a frantic woman asked to use his phone shortly before police arrived.

"She just seemed a bit hysterical, that was it. She wasn't yelling. She started crying actually as I left, she started crying," the neighbor said.