Accused killer Bronx mom felt ‘smothered’ by ‘devil’ boyfriend, her dad says

The Bronx mom charged with fatally stabbing her two young sons felt “smothered” by the boys’ father and believed he was “the devil” because of his tattoos, her dad told The Post on Monday.

Dwane Fleming said his daughter, accused killer Dimone Fleming, 22, called him just hours before the grisly slayings Saturday and complained about her allegedly stifling relationship with her boyfriend, Columbus Canada.

“Two hours before it happened, at 5, she called me and said she was feeling smothered,” Dwane Fleming said. “She couldn’t breathe. She said it was the relationship with Columbus.

“She said she felt he was the devil, that he had tattoos on his body that pertain to satanic stuff,” the grandpa said. “She thought he was the devil because of the marks he had on his body.”

Canada scoffed at the claim to The Post on Monday, saying, “None of that s–t is true.

“I have star tattoos,” he said, adding that Fleming was likely hallucinating about other symbols because “she was already in her place, in her mood.

“I’m far from the devil,” he said. “I’m nowhere near — always God, man.”

Dimone Fleming, who remains under psychiatric evaluation at St. Barnabas Hospital, was charged Sunday in the deaths of sons Daishawn Fleming, 3, and 11-month-old Octavius Canada, whose bodies were found in a bathtub at a Bronx homeless shelter.

Law-enforcement sources said Sunday that Fleming was obsessed with demonic possession and may have killed her young children because she believe they were possessed by the devil.

Police said she was arrested shortly after 7:20 p.m. Saturday over a disturbance in the family’s third-floor apartment at the shelter. She was found naked trying to light a fire in the kitchen, cops said.

Officers responding to the incident did not realize that the two boys had been brutally stabbed and were buried under a pile of clothes in the bathtub.

The unsuspecting cops left with Fleming, after having been told by a family friend that the boys were with their dad.

Canada went to the apartment after the cops left and made the tragic discovery.

Dwane Fleming, 52, said Canada called him after the slain siblings were found and told him the boys were dead and his daughter had been arrested.

“That didn’t make no sense,” the grandpa said. “I talked to her all the time. I spoke to her at least once a week on the phone. She never said anything about the boys overwhelming her.

“She said it was him, that it was Columbus [who] was overwhelming her,” he added. “That he was smothering her. She was unhappy with the relationship.”

Canada has not responded to repeated Post requests for comment.

Meanwhile, a family representative on Monday read a statement outside the shelter.

“We are the Canada and Fleming family,” the statement said. “The tragedy that has unfolded to our family has us heartbroken. We are at a loss for words, but we would like to thank everyone for their thoughts and prayers as we continue to search for answers on why the children were taken from us.

“All family shelters need to be more professional and more hands[-on] with the family’s safety and mindful of the residents of the shelter around the city,” it said.

“Please give us space. We need to recover from the loss of Octavius Cyrus Canada and Daishawn Skakur Fleming. We are calling on [NYPD Commissioner} Keechant Sewell, [Mayor] Eric Adams and [city Social Services Commissioner] Gary Jenkins to come forward and find peace for our family.”

Canada has been so distraught by the slayings that he can barely speak, a family friend said outside the Mount Hope shelter earlier Monday.

He was spotted several times outside the shelter, where a memorial for the two tiny victims has sprouted up, with friends and relatives sharing their condolences.