Charges reduced for woman who drove kids into ocean off Florida

By Barbara Liston ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) – A pregnant woman who drove a minivan with her three children into the ocean off a Florida beach no longer faces charges that she had planned to kill them, court papers filed on Tuesday show. The reduced charges of attempted second degree murder require prosecutors to show Ebony Wilkerson, 32, acted with a depraved state of mind, but no plan. She was originally charged with three counts of attempted first-degree murder which carry a presumption of a thought-out plan to kill her children aged 3, 9 and 10, who survived the incident off Daytona Beach, Florida last month. Wilkerson remains charged with three additional counts of child abuse.