[chris]

A Tempe woman told a 911 dispatcher that gang members had gunned down her teenage son, sending police and paramedics racing to her apartment, where they found the boy alive and unharmed. Hours later, she shot and killed him, according to court records and Tempe police.

The call came in about 11:45 p.m. on Feb. 14, 2008. "There's a killing over here," Cynthia Hernandez, 45, told the dispatcher, according to the recording released by police. She said she had heard gunfire and that a group of men had seized her son and the man she described as her husband. "They just shot my son," she said at one point. "My baby's screaming."

Officers and firefighters found no victims, no gunfire and no gang members at the Flagstone Apartments at 30 W. Carter Drive, near Mill Avenue and U.S. 60, police spokesman Brandon Banks said. The only person nearby was a neighbor talking on a cellphone. After speaking with Hernandez and her 14-year-old son, Jeremy Barragan, and determining that no crime had occurred, the officers documented the contact and left.

Court records show that Hernandez killed the boy in the hours that followed. After he fell asleep, she took a rifle that had been stored in the apartment, laid a bathroom towel over his face and pulled the trigger, the records state. The gun was unloaded and did not fire. She went to another room, retrieved a bullet, loaded the weapon and shot him once, just above the left eye, at point-blank range.

Hernandez left the rifle behind and drove off, then called 911 again to report that people were following her and wanted to kill her, police said. She mentioned shooting her son during that call, but investigators did not act on the remark until hours later. An officer stopped her a short distance away and arrested her on suspicion of having an open container of alcohol, and she was booked into the city jail. Jeremy's father found the body after daybreak and called police.

Released from jail and questioned by detectives, Hernandez said she believed the person she killed was a look-alike and that her son was still alive, records show. She said she had not slept for several days and acknowledged drinking and using marijuana and other drugs before the shooting. Court documents described her as "mentally disturbed" and "delusional." A relative, Joseph Lupear, said she had struggled with bipolar disorder. "We're just assuming this is mental illness gone wrong," he said.

Hernandez was arrested that Friday afternoon on suspicion of killing her son and held in a Maricopa County jail on $250,000 bond.