FILICIDE: The Worst Mothers in History

 Justin Thomas

At some point, everyone thinks that their mom is one of the worst mothers in history. Fortunately, that’s not the case. There are some truly awful mothers in history who have become famous for killing their children, eating their babies, torturing their offspring, and just being terrible people. Take a look at this collection of the worst mothers in history, and it’ll be much easier to show your appreciation for your mother, who (hopefully) didn’t murder you, on Mother’s Day. Here are the worst mothers in the history of mothers:

Medea

Medea (not to be confused with Tyler Perry’s Madea, who is also on this list btw) is a woman from Greek Mythology. Medea was married to Jason of Jason and the Argonauts fame. In order to obtain the infamous Golden Fleece, Jason was assigned a number of seemingly impossible tasks, but Medea fell in love with Jason and helped him. After Jason was victorious, he married Medea and they had two children together. Medea killed and dismembered her own brother and had a penchant for poisoning people with narcotics in order to aid Jason on his quests, but Jason eventually left Medea (with their two children) when he was offered the hand of a princess. Medea got so pissed off that she murdered the king and the princess, then murdered her own children and rode out of town in a golden chariot pulled by dragons. And you thought your mom was crazy.

Marybeth Tinning

When you’re mom sent you to your room for doing something bad, you probably thought she was the worst mom in the world. Just be happy she didn’t smother you to death, like Marybeth Tinning did with 8 of her children between 1972 and 1985. Marybeth’s M.O. was pretty simple: she would have a child, and then within a year of the child’s birth, Marybeth would come rushing into the emergency room carrying a dead or dying baby. Her story was the same every time: she would claim that the baby just stopped breathing. Somehow, this had to happen 8 times before people started getting suspicious, and Marybeth eventually confessed to murdering 3 of the 8 children who definitely died at her hands. She’s still in prison and has been denied parole consistently since her incarceration.

Susan Smith

Susan Smith is the Poster Girl of crazy moms. In 1994, Susan murdered her two sons, ages 3 and 1, by locking them in her car and rolling the car into a lake. Susan then reported the children as missing to the local police, claiming that a “black man” had stolen her car with the children inside. The story gained national attention, and concerned mothers across the country were on the lookout for Susan’s stolen car, her missing children, and anyone who could be described as “a black man”. Within a couple of weeks, though, Susan admitted to murdering her own children, and everyone in America wanted to kick her ass. According to Susan, she killed her children in order to attract an older man who wasn’t interested in taking on a family, so Susan thought “oh, that’s perfect! He never said anything about not wanting to be with a murderer, so I’ll just kill my family and then we can be happy forever!” Obviously, Susan suffered from some mental problems. She’s still in prison today, and she probably will be for the rest of her life.

OctoMom

Octomom (aka Nadya Suleman) didn’t kill any of her children, but some might argue that what she did is even worse: despite already having six children, she basically overdosed on fertility drugs in order to give birth to a set of octuplets so that she could become famous. She’s the second woman to give birth to octuplets in America, and her 8 babies have a record survival time, meaning that usually octuplets die shortly after birth. Nadya’s plan worked perfectly, and within a few weeks after giving birth to the octuplets, Nadya was an international celebrity. Shortly after that, people began to learn about Nadya’s life, and that’s where she began to lose fans. It turns out that, even before she was artificially impregnated with the octuplets, Nadya was a single mother to 6 previous children, was unemployed, and was living on welfare. That’s not exactly the best time to be popping out eight more hungry babies. Nadya makes the list for putting her own personal lust for stardom in front of her babies, her 6 older kids, and any sense of moral dignity. Then again, considering that Nadya has 14 kids, she doesn’t look bad at all.

Andrea Yates

Andrea Yates is another baby-killer who drew national attention and quickly became a household name, at least when your family was having conversations about filicide. Andrea had a long history of depression, mental disorders, and diagnosed psychosis. Numerous doctors had warned her and her husband that her psychosis could prove dangerous to her children, but Andrea and her husband ignored the warnings. Then, in 2001, Andrea’s craziness got the best of her. She methodically drowned all five of her children in the bathtub in the span of one hour. The children ranged between 7 months and 7 years old. Andrea drowned the younger children first and saved the 7-year old for last, then she creepily laid all the bodies out on her bed. Despite her blatant craziness, her husband still talked about having more children with Andrea all through the trial. And you thought your mom was nuts for making you take a shower every day.

Diane Downs

Diane Downs was basically the protege for the more infamous Susan Smith. In 1983, Diane shot her three young children, ages 4, 7, and 8, then drove them all to the hospital and reported that her car had been hijacked, that the hijacker had shot all of her children, and that she had narrowly escaped, suffering only a bullet wound to the arm. One of her daughters was pronounced dead on arrival, and the other two children were in critical condition. At first, doctors and police had no reason to doubt Diane’s story. After all, it was the 80′s and people weren’t very intuitive back then. It wasn’t until Diane visited one of her surviving daughters in the hospital that they became suspicious. Even though Diane’s daughter was incapacitated, she became terrified at the presence of her mother. After some further investigation, they soon discovered that Diane was carrying on an affair with a guy in Phoenix, Arizona. If she ever wanted to be with him, she’d have to get rid of this pesky family she’d built. Diane was sentenced to life in prison, and she’s been denied parole numerous times. She’ll be in prison for the rest of her life. Still, it might be a good idea to not let your mom watch the Lifetime Original Movie of Diane Downs, just to be safe.

China Arnold

If you were making a list of “Things Not To Do With a Newborn Baby”, the number one item on the list would be “Don’t put it in the microwave”. Unfortunately, China Arnold left this all-important rule of her list and microwaved her newborn baby to death in 2005. The grisly murder occured when China was “intoxicated” and got into a fight with her boyfriend regarding the baby’s paternity. China placed the baby in the microwave and fired it up. She then took it to the hospital the following day, where the baby died from injuries. China was convicted of murder in 2008 and is currently serving a life sentence, but here conviction was recently reversed, so China’s heading back to the court room for a third trial. Good luck ever enjoying a Hot Pocket again.

Rosemarie Fritzl

Most of us will remember the creepiest news story to come out of 2008. The story was about Josef Fritzl, an Austrian man who built a secret sex dungeon in the basement of his house, locked his favorite daughter in that sex dungeon for 24 years, and continually and repeatedly raped, sodomized, and molested that daughter, fathering 7 incest children with her. Three of those incest children were kept in the basement dungeon with their imprisoned mother for their entire lives. They had never seen daylight. One of the worst aspects of this nightmarish story is that Josef Fritzl had a wife who was essentially complicit in the acts of her husband. At least, the courts concluded that she would’ve had to go out of her way to ignore the fact that her own daughter was being held prisoner in her basement for over two decades. The next time your son, daughter, niece, or nephew complains about having to do chores, just ask them if they’d rather be imprisoned, enslaved, raped, and molested for 24 straight years.
http://egotvonline.com/2011/05/05/the-worst-mothers-in-history/