South Carolina mother already free on bond for child-endangerment charges is accused of stabbing her young children roughly 50 times and beating them with a baseball bat, leaving the 6-year-old boy facing possible amputation of fingers or an arm, authorities said.
Taylor Gosnell, 35, of the Cowpens area in Spartanburg County, was charged with two counts of attempted murder after deputies responded Sept. 26 to a welfare check at a home on Bud Arthur Bridge Road, according to the Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office and local court records. Investigators say the attack occurred overnight. The children, ages 3 and 6, were left alone and injured for hours before the older child called his grandmother, said he and his sister were hungry, and reported that their mother was not home.
Relatives who arrived found both children covered in blood inside a house where televisions and mirrors had been smashed, officials said. Between them, the children suffered an estimated 50 stab wounds, some cutting to the bone, according to statements from the sheriff’s office and the solicitor’s office. The boy sustained the more severe injuries. Both were taken first to Spartanburg Regional Medical Center and later transferred to Prisma Health Children’s Hospital in Greenville, where they remained hospitalized and were expected to undergo further surgeries. Authorities said they were in stable condition and expected to survive.
Gosnell returned to the residence while deputies were still on scene, officials said. She spoke rapidly, mentioned having “visions,” and attempted to leave an ambulance before being restrained. She was booked on the attempted-murder charges and later faced additional counts of possession of a weapon during a violent crime. A judge denied bond.
Court records show this was not Gosnell’s first contact with the system over the children. She was arrested in February 2024 on two counts of unlawfully placing a child at risk of harm. Bond was set at $5,000 per charge. That case remained unresolved for roughly 31 months with no trial, according to reporting on the public record. She was free when the September attack occurred.
The case has drawn attention because the earlier charges involved the same children and the new allegations involve repeated, severe injuries inflicted with a knife and a blunt object before the children were left unattended. Sheriff’s officials described the scene as one that left deputies and investigators without adequate preparation for what they encountered.
The details raise a direct question about patterns of severe abuse by mothers against very young children and about how prior endangerment cases are handled when bond is granted and cases linger for years: what is going on with moms in America when a parent already facing child-risk charges is released and later accused of an attack of this scale?
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