ROSELLE PARK, New Jersey (AP) -- Police charged a woman Monday with fatally bludgeoning her 14-year-old daughter with a hammer and shovel as the girl slept.<br /><br />Lynn Giovanni, 45, was charged with murder and was being held at a psychiatric hospital on $250,000 bail. Authorities would not comment on a possible motive.<br /><br />Several hours after Sunday's slaying, the mother tried to kill herself by crashing her car into a guardrail along a highway in a nearby town, authorities said. She sustained only minor injuries.<br /><br />State police investigating the accident questioned Giovanni, who told them "of a possible homicide," said Union County Prosecutor Theodore Romankow.<br /><br />Police then broke into the house where Giovanni had been staying with her mother and daughter, and found the bloodied body of Nicole Giovanni.<br /><br />The girl was a freshman at Roselle Catholic High School, where administrators described her as popular and an accomplished indoor track runner. Grief counselors were called to the school Monday.<br /><br />An arraignment was tentatively set for Wednesday.
