HOLLAND, Mich. (WOOD) A mom accused of stabbing her son to death told police she was helping him fulfill his wish: to die before his 18th birthday.

Katie Austin Lee was arraigned Monday afternoon on charges of open murder and resisting an officer following the death of her son, Austin Dean Pikaart, on Friday at their apartment in Holland.

He would have turned 18 Saturday.

She appeared in Holland District Court Monday through a video hookup from the Ottawa County Jail, her head bowed. Family members gathered in the courtroom, one saying, “We love you, Katie,” after the hearing.

Court records show that the mom called 911 at 4:15 a.m. Friday and reported “she couldn’t get her son to stop breathing and had been trying for a while.”

“She advised her son asked her to help him stop breathing because he did not want to turn 18,” a detective told a judge in a probable cause hearing.

Lee told dispatchers that she had used a knife to cut him after he passed out and that there were cuts to his throat and an arm, according to court records.

She told dispatchers she wanted to “commit suicide” and that she and her son had both tried to overdose on medication at 1 p.m. the day before. About five hours later, at 6 p.m., she cut him after he passed out, she told dispatchers.

When police arrived to their home at Bay Pointe Apartments on East 16th Street, Lee had blood on her clothes and was holding a large kitchen knife “up by her shoulder as if to threaten” officers, according to court records.

She refused to drop the knife, leading an officer to use a Taser on her. Eventually, police said, she dropped the knife, but then tried to retrieve it, leading officers to use their Tasers again.

“Lee stated that officers were supposed to kill her … so she could be with her son,” court records show.

Officers found her son in a bed with a large cut to his neck and cuts on his left arm.

Police took his mom to the hospital for possible treatment of an overdose.

Lee was denied bond at arraignment. She said in court she is unemployed and is disabled.

After the hearing, a woman who identified herself as Lee’s sister spoke briefly to News 8.

“The only thing I can say is to take mental health serious. That’s it,” the woman said.

Neither mother nor son had any record of court-ordered mental health intervention in Ottawa County, where they had lived for a decade.

A GoFundMe account has been launched by family to help cover Austin Pikaart’s funeral services.