Woman in alleged death plot 'lost her mind'

A US woman who was held in Ireland in connection with an alleged murder plot announced she had converted to Islam and told her family they'd go to hell if they didn't follow in her steps, her mother said.

Jamie Paulin-Ramirez, 31, also began talking about Jihad with her Muslim stepfather and spent most of her time online as she withdrew from her family, Ms Mott said.

"We were enemies," Christine Mott said. "We couldn't even speak to each other."

Last year, on September 11, Ms Paulin-Ramirez left Leadville in Colorado west of Denver. She took her six-year-old son with her, her mother said.

A US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Ms Paulin-Ramirez was detained in Ireland in connection with an alleged plot to kill a Swedish cartoonist who had offended many Muslims.

Irish police said later they had released without charge an American woman, who they didn't identify, and three others arrested in Ireland over an alleged plot to assassinate the cartoonist, Lars Vilks. Three men remained in custody.

Ms Paulin-Ramirez's arrest is one of four developments in the past week that involved Americans in alleged terror plots abroad.

Al Qaeda spokesman Adam Gadahn appeared in a video, Sharif Mobley of New Jersey tried to escape his detainment in Yemen, and Colleen LaRose, who allegedly went by the name Jihad Jane to recruit others online to kill Vilks, was named in a federal terror indictment.

The 59-year-old Mrs Mott described her daughter as a troubled single mother who had the "mentality of an abused woman" and who, in trying to escape her loneliness, may have spiralled into the depths of Islamic extremism.

Ms Paulin-Ramirez told her family after she left in September that she went to Ireland with her six-year-old son and married an Algerian whom she met online, Mrs Mott said.

Before abruptly leaving Colorado, Ms Paulin-Ramirez had been a straight-A nursing student and had worked at a clinic in Edwards, about 40 miles west of Leadville, her mother said. She moved to Leadville from Denver six years ago.

Mrs Mott said her daughter told her family during Easter last year that she converted to Islam, and renamed her son. She said her daughter was teaching him to hate Christians as she grew more distant from her family.

When she discussed jihad with her stepfather, George Mott, who has been a Muslim for more than 40 years, she told him "she'd strap a bomb for the cause," Mrs Mott said.

She said she believes her daughter was lonely and "got sucked in" and brainwashed by other people.

George Mott said the family had not been in touch with Ms Paulin-Ramirez since news of her release and did not know where she might be or if her son was with her.

"That baby is my heart, he is my reason to breathe," Mrs Mott said crying, later recalling her weekly phone conversations with her grandson. Her last phone call with him was on Monday.

"When we talk," she recalled, "We give each other hugs and kisses on the phone," she said, putting her arms across her chest.

During a recent phone call, Mrs Mott said, her grandson told her that "all Christians will burn in hellfire".

Among the people Ms Paulin-Ramirez also communicated with online was a man from Pakistan who told her he wanted to come to the US to learn how to fly, the Motts said.