Woman now in mental facility charged with murders of 2 women

A woman being held in a mental health facility for an unrelated stabbing has been charged in separate ax murders in 2006 of two South Shore women who attended the same church as the suspect.
Pamela Myles, 43, was weeping as she shuffled into Cook County bond court Tuesday to face two counts of first-degree murder in the slayings of Annie Mae Davis, 59, and Everleana Brame, 74. As prosecutors detailed the charges, Myles put her head on the bench in front of Judge Donald Panarese Jr. and wailed.
Davis and Brame were found dead in their homes less than a month apart in April 2006. Each suffered what appeared to be ax wounds to the head.
Myles became a suspect after witnesses reported having seen her walking around the neighborhood with an axe, Maher said. Another neighbor told detectives that Brame told her two days before her murder that Myles had appeared at her door holding a large hammer and demanding money, he said.
Police also learned that Myles had a falling out with the pastor of the New Triedstone Church in the weeks before the slayings, according to Maher. Both victims also attended the church, he said.
During a search of Myles’ home shortly after the second murder, police found an ax and hammer inside a suspended ceiling as well as a document entitled "mothers who won't make it to mothers day," Maher said. The document included a list of initials and the word “dead” next to each entry. The letters “ANN” and “BRA” were believed to refer Davis and Brame.
“The list also included the defendant’s name, with the words ‘congratulations to me.
Myles was interviewed in 2006 but denied any involvement in the murders. No physical evidence was found on either the axe or the hammer, and while Myles remained a “person of interest,” she was never charged.
In 2007, Myles was arrested after stabbing an elderly woman at a bus stop, according to court records. She was found guilty but mentally ill of aggravated battery to a senior citizen. Judge Lawrence Fox sentenced her to the Elgin Mental Health Center, where she was due to be released in 2014.
Maher said investigators went to the health facility in June to re-interview Myles about the murders as well as a third unsolved homicide involving a male church member.
“(Myles) remained mute and would not utter a single word during the interview,”.
Three days later, Myles approached a worker at the facility and said she needed to talk to him, Maher said. After telling the employee she had “killed two people,” he gave her a pen and a piece of paper and she wrote out the confession and signed it.
Court records show a history of mental illness for Myles going back at least 16 years. In 1994, she was found guilty of armed robbery and armed violence and sentenced to probation with “outpatient treatment” for mental issues, according to records. In 2006, she was found unfit for trial in an attempted armed robbery case and ordered to undergo inpatient treatment.
Myles’ court-appointed attorney noted that the “sole piece of evidence offered by the state is a confession from a woman who is mentally ill.”