FILICIDE (multiple): Trial starts for Kelli Murphy

8:28 PM, Nov 14, 2012   |   0  comments

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CASTLE ROCK - A Castle Rock mother faced a jury on Wednesday, accused of murdering her 9-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter in May 2011.

Prosecutors say Kelli Lynn Murphy, 41, killed her kids Liam, 9, and Madigan, 6, in an act of control and revenge against her husband, Robert Eric Murphy.

She had filed for divorce against her husband and was due in court on a custody issue on the same day she's accused of murdering her children. Murphy's defense attorneys say Murphy was depressed because of the divorce and felt alone.

"She changed," Defense Attorney Ara Ohanion said. "She felt like everyone had abandoned her."

Ohanion claimed Murphy blacked out after drinking a full bottle of vodka and taking sleeping pills, hoping her kids would find her dead.

"Her plan was that she would go to sleep and not wake up. Her kids would find her. They would know she did not abandon them, [that] she just passed away," Ohanion said.

But when she woke up, "the kids were dead, and she wasn't," Ohanion said.

The 911 call

Kelli Murphy called 911 just before 8 a.m. on May 23, 2011 to report she slit her wrists. She also told a dispatcher she had kids in her house.

"They are in heaven right now," Murphy told a dispatcher, according to the 911 call played in the courtroom Wednesday.

When asked by dispatcher what happened to her kids, Murphy said, at least four times according to prosecutors, she needed an attorney. The Douglas County District Attorney's office is pursuing two counts of first-degree murder against Murphy.

"Mothers are not supposed to kill their children. Mother's provide life," Douglas County Deputy District Attorney Jay Williford told the jury in his opening statement. "But in this case, Kelli Lynn Murphy, squeezed the life from 9-year-old Liam and 6-year-old Madigan by her own hands. Both Liam and Madigan's life have been silenced."

Jurors heard testimony from the 911 dispatcher and the first officer to respond to the scene Wednesday morning. When Castle Rock Police Officer William Harris showed up to the house, he found Murphy with her wrists slit.

"It shocked me for a quick second," Harris told the jury.

Harris says he held paper towels on Murphy's wrists and asked her about her kids.

"They are deceased," he says Murphy told him.

When he asked where they were, she pointed down the hallway, Harris says. Another officer found the kids, suffocated and smothered to death in their respective bedrooms, prosecutors said. 

Troubled family history detailed in court records

According to court records reviewed by 9Wants to Know investigators, Kelli and Robert Eric Murphy filed for divorce in early 2011. Kelli Murphy was set to appear in court on Monday for a temporary restraining order hearing. Another hearing was set for Wednesday at 9 a.m. to discuss the order regarding a motion to vacate temporary orders of the divorce.

Murphy had filed a civil-protection order against her husband on March 3, citing domestic abuse and assault. According to the court documents, Kelli Murphy claimed her husband grabbed his daughter by the throat on two occasions in front of her brother.

"We were at home eating dinner, Robert had finished and was sitting on the couch. Madigan started messing around at the table, and he got up from the couch and grabbed her by the throat [in front of me and Liam] and started screaming at her to finish dinner," Kelli Murphy said in court documents.

She stated on another occasion, "Robert was giving Madigan a bath. She started messing around and not getting soap off. He again grabbed her by the neck/throat. [She said Dad was choking me] and shoved her head under the faucet. Liam saw it happen."

Kelli Murphy also told authorities on one occasion Robert Murphy barricaded her in the basement and hit her with the door. On April 11, Kelli Murphy wanted to permanently withdraw the divorce petition, citing the couple filed for divorce out of anger.

"Through our pastor, he had recommended a 'cooling off' period, and that we get into counseling. I do not want a divorce, and my husband has told me that as well. This needs to stop. We need counseling not a divorce. I am asking the court to intervene and stop these proceedings so that we can get counseling and put our marriage/family back together. After attending the parenting class, I know we need to pursue every method we can to save this marriage, keep our family together before it is too late," Kelli Murphy told the court.

The judge denied her request, saying that both parties needed to ask for a withdrawal in order for the divorce to be stopped.

The trial

Prosecutors says their case, moving forward, will show the jury pictures of the children's injuries, solicit testimony from neighbors and put Murphy's husband on the stand.

Ohanion says he would ask the jury to consider her mental state. He said he would ask the jury to consider lesser charges than first-degree murder but did not elaborate on what those charges might be.

"You will see Kelli Murphy is not guilty of first-degree murder," Ohanion told the jury.

(KUSA-TV © 2012 Multimedia Holdings Corporation)

INFANTICIDE: Cassidy Goodison age 14 charged capital murder

'I put my hands around its throat to make it stop breathing': Horrifying moment a 14-year-old girl explains how she strangled newborn before hiding body in a shoebox

• Cassidy Goodison 'delivered baby boy in bathroom and strangled him'
• 14-year-old charged with first-degree murder as an adult
• Kept pregnancy secret from mother and father because she feared how they would react

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER

PUBLISHED: 14:43 GMT, 18 November 2012 | UPDATED: 10:56 GMT, 19 November 2012

A 14-year-old girl has told in horrifying detail of the moment she secretly delivered her baby with a pair of scissors in the family bathroom before throttling the newborn and hiding the body in a shoe box.

Cassidy Goodison, 14, has been charged as an adult with first-degree murder after police learned how she killed her child following months of disguising the pregnancy from her parents.

In a video reconstruction, using a Santa Claus doll as a model for the baby, Goodison sat in the bathroom of her Florida home to show investigators what she did.

Scroll down for video

Graphic: Cassidy Goodison, 14, shows how she killed her baby by demonstrating on a Santa Claus doll at her Florida home

Horrifying: Goodison renacted the moment she choked her baby to death in September at her home

The new evidence was released last week as part of the capital murder case against her. 

Police had the teenager reconstruct how she had allegedly killed her child, using a Santa Claus doll as the baby.

On the ABC clip, she said: 'Its eyes weren’t open but I felt to see if it was breathing or not, and (it was breathing) so I put my hands around its throat to make it stop breathing.'

Goodison went into labor in her home in Greenbrier Village, Florida on September 19 and instead of calling for help, disguised her screams of pain by running the tap and gripping a towel between her teeth as she sat on the toilet.

After prising the 9.5lb boy from her body with a pair of  scissors, she felt for a pulse and then strangled the boy to death and hid his corpse in a shoe box with dirty laundry.

When asked by police how hard she squeezed, the girl said: 'Enough for it to stop breathing.'

Three days later, as Teresa Goodson cleaned her daughter's room, a foul odor drew her attention to a pile of soiled, wet clothes in which she found the deceased infant hidden in a box. 

Secrets: Goodison told police she was frightened of telling her parents she was pregnant

An autopsy performed determined the victim was a full term infant and that he was alive and breathing prior to death. He died as a result of asphyxia from strangulation and blunt force trauma.

Miss Goodson had gone to great lengths to hide the transformation of her 5ft 3in 100lb body during pregnancy, according to Polk County officials.

Throughout the summer, as she walked around in baggy sweat pant and loose-fitting T-shirts. 

Members of her family grew suspicious of her appearance and attempted to discuss the possibility she was pregnant with the teen's mother. 

But Mrs Goodson denied the suggestions, said the report, claiming that she had made her daughter do two home tests, albeit in the privacy of her bathroom, which both came out negative. 

Husband Timothy Goodson agreed meanwhile that he had noticed Miss Goodson's weight gain and that she had been walking around at home wrapped in a blanket. 

An interview with the teenager on September 22 revealed that after the 14-year-old had delivered the 9.5lb, 20.4in boy into the toilet, she had felt for a pulse and then strangled him to death.

Facing life in prison:The 14-year-old has been charged with first-degree murder in Florida

Confirming he was dead by once again checking his pulse, she then cleaned herself and the baby and tucked the evidence out of sight.

Shortly after, however, Mrs Goodson noticed blood in the toilet she knew had been recently used by her daughter so took her to Lakeland Regional Medical Center.

There medical staff treating the high school student told Mrs Goodson that she had suffered a miscarriage and showed four to five lacerations on her vaginal wall. 

Though these injuries were in reality self-inflicted when the teenager had pried the baby out of her with a pair of scissors, she falsely confessed to her mother that she had indeed had a miscarriage at home and flushed the fetus down the toilet by mistake. 

Hidden: The teenager hid the dead baby in a shoebox which was found by her mother when she was cleaning

Polk County Sheriff's Office deputies, along with members of the Department of Children and Families responded to a call from the hospital reporting the case and details were retained by the PCSO Bureau of Criminal Investigations for follow up investigations. 

'This is the most perplexing, confusing, disheartening case I've ever seen in my 18 years on this job'

Police spokesman

According to the Sheriff's Office affidavit, on the evening of September 22, at approximately 7.30pm, Mrs Goodson removed a bag of smelly, wet clothing from a storage stool in her daughter's bedroom. 

While sorting through the clothing she found the body of the baby concealed in the shoe box. 

In a panic, Mrs Goodson called her sisters who in turn alerted the police. 

Miss Goodson told detectives she was motivated to hide her pregnancy and choke the baby 'to stop him from breathing,' by the fear that her relationship with her parents would change if they found out the truth. 

Life-changing: The teenager could be sentenced to life after the death of her baby

Miss Goodson was arrested and transported first to the Juvenile Assessment Center and then to the Polk County Juvenile Detention Facility. 

She is charged with premeditated first degree murder, a capital felony and aggravated child abuse, a first degree felony.

Polk County Public Information officer, Donna Wood, told MailOnline: 'This is the most perplexing, confusing, disheartening case I've ever seen in my 18 years on this job. Everyone has been touched by it.'

FILICIDE: Luz Dianne Gonzalez charged in Puerto Rico

Puerto Rican mom faces trial for child's death

Published October 30, 2012

EFE

A mother faces prosecution on charges of murder and intentional mistreatment for letting her 4-year-old son die of malnutrition, Puerto Rico's Justice Department said Tuesday.

The mother, identified as Luz Dianne Gonzalez, faces charges for the death from malnutrition of her son Edgardo Edriel Gonzalez on Nov. 20, 2011, the department said in a press release.

Prosecutors filed charges under Article 106 of the 2004 Penal Code for first-degree murder and three more for intentional malnutrition under Article 75 of the 2003 Childhood Well-being and Comprehensive Protection Law.

According to an investigation by the Division of Sex Crimes and Mistreatment of Minors of the Puerto Rico Police Department, the boy did not weigh 7 kilos (15 pounds), which would be normal for an infant of only 18-20 months.

The hearing to which Gonzalez is summoned is scheduled for Nov. 15 at a San Juan court. EFE

Read more: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2012/10/30/puerto-rican-mom-faces-trial-for-child-death/#ixzz2BYeHczn3

FILICIDE: UK: Chantelle Blake pleads guilty to manslaughter

Mother, 32, suffocated her daughter, 4, 'out of love' as she suffered delusions of being persecuted by her neighbours

• Mother pleads guilty to manslaughter and is subjected to hospital order
• Court heard Chantelle Blake was suffering from 'delusions and hallucinations'
• Neighbour said last year that mother shouted at her because she thought she was starring at her  

By JAMES ANDREW

PUBLISHED: 17:48 GMT, 6 November 2012 | UPDATED: 18:29 GMT, 6 November 2012

A mentally ill woman who who wrongly feared she was being persecuted by her neighbours suffocated her four-year-old daughter 'out of love' to protect her, a court has been told.    

Chantelle Blake pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility and was made the subject of a hospital order by Manchester Crown Court.

The court heard that the 32-year-old used a pillow to suffocated her daughter Kaiya because she was suffering from ‘delusions and hallucinations’.

Tragedy: A mentally ill mother, Chantelle Blake killed the daughter Kaiya because she believed she was being 'persecuted by their neighbours', a court heard

Speaking in September last year after the incident, neighbour Karina Demetriadis, 24, said: 'Chantelle shouted at me once because she thought I was staring at her daughter.

'She kept herself to herself and would never just have a normal conversation with anyone.

'She always looked like a doting mum. She was very protective.'

There is no evidence to suggest the neighbour did anything wrong.

When sentencing her, Mr Justice MacKay said: ‘The day you ended your daughter's life will, I am sure, be with you forever.’

The judge said it was not the purpose of the court to punish Blake, as doctors on both sides agreed she was and is suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.

 

More...

• First picture of four-year-old girl found dead in her home after being 'suffocated by her mother'
• Mother appears in court charged with murder after daughter, four, is found dead at home

He said: ‘I fully accept that you did what you did out of your love for and concern for Kaiya.’

Mr Justice MacKay said the defendant's ‘mental functions’ 'abnormal’ at the time.

‘You were thinking in a distorted and deluded way, but you genuinely believed that you were acting to protect your daughter from harm by persons who wished her ill. You thought that because you were mentally ill at the time.’

Suffocated: Four-year-old Kaiya was killed by her mother out of love

The court heard that Kaiya was found by police at their home in Garthorne Close, Moss Side, Manchester, on September 22 last year after the defendant turned up at A&E with a child's suitcase.

She had slashed her arms with a knife and told a nurse she had suffocated her daughter, the court heard.

Mr Reeds said that the signs ‘were not picked up at the time’. In 2011, the court heard, the child was taken away from Blake.

He said: ‘There was a period when it was necessary to assess whether or not she could cope with looking after Kaiya and that separation seems to have been the catalyst for the acceleration of her delusional behaviour.’

The court was told that Kaiya was returned to her mother and some months after this assessment she killed her daughter.

Mr Reeds said she attended the A&E department of Manchester Royal Infirmary on September 22, 2011.

She had attempted to cut her forearms and her wrists. She spoke to a triage nurse who described her as being ‘matter of fact’.

Scene: Flowers are left out side the house of Chantelle Blake after she killed her young daughter Kaiya

Mr Reeds said: ‘She said it was because she had killed her daughter. She said she had suffocated her daughter. She had brought her child's suitcase with her which had some personal effects in it.’

Also in the suitcase was the knife she had used to cut herself.

Police went to her home and broke down the door.

‘Under a duvet in the bedroom, with a pillow covering her face was the body of Kaiya. It was plain that she had been there for some time. It was also plain that she had been suffocated,’ Mr Reeds said.

It is not clear how long the child had been dead, the court heard.

Judy Khan QC, defending, said: ‘Miss Blake does not accept that she was mentally ill but she does accept that she was not in her right mind at the time of killing her daughter.

Happier days: Chantelle Blake with her daughter Kaiya

‘She maintains that she and her daughter were persecuted by her neighbours and she did not, nor has she ever, suffered from delusions or hallucinations.'

Miss Khan added: ‘She agrees that whatever the situation was with all those external factors, she made a grave error in killing her daughter and she will bitterly regret it for the rest of her life.’

Miss Khan said Blake did it out of ‘love and fear’ and to protect her daughter.

‘There was no one she could turn to and nobody else on her side,’ Miss Khan said.

The court was told that Kaiya's father, Alexander Glenford, was based in Jamaica but that Blake and Kaiya regularly visited him.

Blake cared for Kaiya as a single parent but Mr Glenford ‘kept in touch with the defendant and maintained an interest in her and his daughter.’

Detective Chief Inspector Phil Reade, of Greater Manchester Police, said: ‘Kaiya's death was an absolute tragedy. She was a happy young girl with her whole life ahead of her. Her death has left a huge hole in her family's life that can never ever be filled.

‘This family has suffered immeasurably over the past year and our thoughts and sympathies are with Kaiya's family as they continue to try and come to terms with her tragic death.'

A spokesperson for Manchester City Council said: ‘An independent serious case review is currently under way which is looking at the contact with family we, and other agencies, had.

‘This was a terrible tragedy and our thoughts are with Kaiya's family.’

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2228676/Woman-subject-hospital-order-suffocating-daughter-love.html#ixzz2BUBS5orI
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FILICIDE: Sara Ege kills son over Koran learning

Mother 'beat son, 7, to death then set fire to his body' because he struggled to learn the Koran off by heart

• Sara Ege, 32, is accused of beating her son Yaseen to death because he was struggling with his Islamic studies, then setting fire to his body
• The boy's death was treated as an accident until a post-mortem examination revealed Yaseen died before the blaze broke out at the family home in Cardiff
• Cardiff Crown Court was told Ege beat Yaseen with a stick and a hammer and locked him in a shed when he failed to recite Koran passages
• The 32-year-old denies murdering her son and burning his body to destroy the evidence

By KERRY MCDERMOTT

PUBLISHED: 18:07 GMT, 1 November 2012 | UPDATED: 15:27 GMT, 2 November 2012

A mother brutally beat her seven-year-old son to death with a stick then set his body on fire because he was struggling to commit passages from the Koran to memory, a court was told.

Sara Ege, 32, is alleged to have beaten Yaseen Ali 'like a dog' for failing to recite passages from the religious text, before burning his body at the family home in Cardiff to try and cover up what she had done.

The youngster's death was initially believed to be a tragic accident following the blaze at the house in Pontcanna, until a post-mortem examination revealed Yaseen had died before the fire broke out, Cardiff Crown Court heard.

Beaten: Yaseen Ali, seven, was beaten by his mother for falling behind with his Islamic studies, a court heard

Accused: An artist's sketch of Sara Ege, who is accused of beating her son to death and setting fire to his body, on trial at Cardiff Crown Court

Ege is also accused of abusing her son in the months leading up to his death, allegedly beating him with a hammer and locking him in a shed for falling behind with his Islamic studies.

The trial at Cardiff Crown Court heard how the university graduate and her husband Yousuf Ege had enrolled Yaseen in advanced classes at their local mosque and hoped he would become Hafiz - an Islamic term for someone who has memorised the Koran.

 

More...

• Boy 'who shot dead his neo-Nazi father' thought he wouldn't get in trouble because he'd 'seen it in an episode of Criminal Minds'
• 'All I wanted to do was to get her to stop': Mother admits suffocating her two-year-old daughter because toddler kept crying

In a video recording of her interview with police Ege told officers she had set her seven-year-old the target of memorising 35 pages in three months.

But the court was told fun-loving Yaseen preferred to play with his friends and fell behind with his learning.

Funeral: Cardiff Crown Court has heard Ege grew increasingly frustrated with her seven-year-old son for failing to learn passages from the Koran

Tragedy: Ege allegedly hit her child with a hammer, a rolling pin and a slipper as well as punching him repeatedly

'I was getting more and more frustrated,' Ege said in the interview.

'If he didn’t read it properly I would be very angry - I would hit him.

'But Yaseen wasn’t very good - after a year of practice he had only learned a chapter.”

She went on: 'I was getting all this bad stuff in my head, like I couldn’t concentrate, I was getting angry too much, I would shout at Yaseen all the time.

'I was getting very wild - I use to beat him with a stick.'

The court was told how Ege hit Yaseen with a hammer, a rolling pin and a slipper as well as repeatedly punching him.

She would also allegedly lock him in the shed, tie him to a door, and force him to do push ups.

The court heard that in the months after Yaseen's death Ege told a doctor she had been told to kill her son by Shaitan - an Islamic name for the devil - and that she felt 100 per cent better after he died.

Notes kept by her GP record her as saying: 'It is like something has been released. For three or four months I have not been normal.'

Scene: Police and firefighters rushed to the family home in Pontcanna, Cardiff, after the blaze broke out in July 2010

Police and firefighters were called to the family’s home in Pontcanna, Cardiff, in July 2010 after a blaze ripped through the top floor.

Little Yaseen was pulled from the blaze and fire fighter Rhodri Morgan told the court how he’d given him CPR believing he could save his life.

He said: 'I was performing compressions on his chest, but I kept having to take my hand away because his skin was so hot.

'While I was doing this bits of skin and fat were flaking off his legs - it was like when a piece of newspaper burns and curls.'

Barbecue lighter fuel was found on her Ege’s clothing when she was arrested after a post mortem examination revealed Yaseen was dead before the fire broke out.

She denies murdering Yaseen and burning his body to hide what she had done.

Her husband denies causing or allowing the death of a child by not stopping his wife’s beatings.

Yaseen's father, who would drive the seven-year-old to mosque for his Koran practice before and after school, has said he never saw his wife raise a hand against their child.

The trial continues.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2226408/Sara-Ege-beat-son-Yaseen-death-set-body-struggled-learn-Koran-heart.html#ixzz2B5wA33NA
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'Will I slide back into that dark tunnel of depression?’

The tragic case of the mother who killed her two young children reminds Erin Baker of her own post-natal despair

Mother’s joy and pain: Erin and her son Josh  Photo: Andrew Crowley

By Erin Baker

 01 Nov 2012

Whose heart hasn’t bled this week for Felicia Boots, the 35-year-old mother who became so delusional after stopping her medication for post-natal depression that she smothered her two children, 14-month-old Lily and nine-week-old Mason?

The wisest words, surprisingly, have come from the Old Bailey judge who heard her case: one doesn’t expect High Court Justices to show such sympathy and understanding. Speaking on Tuesday, Mr Justice Fulford said: “I unreservedly accept that what the defendant did to the two children she and her husband so loved and nurtured was solely the result of psychiatric and bio-physiological factors truly beyond her control.”

My tears for Mrs Boots, her husband and two children have been partly hormonal, because I’m six months pregnant, and partly empathetic: I never sank to the level of depression that Mrs Boots suffered, but after the birth of my first child two and a half years ago, I, like many other women, had post-natal depression (PND).

The tears are also of relief, at the acknowledgement from someone, particularly a man in a professional capacity, that post-natal depression is “beyond the control” of the person suffering it.

My depression after my son’s birth was horrific but mercifully short-lived. I suffered a tricky pregnancy: I’d already had two miscarriages, then bled heavily during the first trimester. I was told I was miscarrying again, then, mistakenly, that the foetus had a severe chromosonal abnormality and I would have to have a termination. That diagnosis was wrong, but a combined screening test showed up a one-in-six risk of Down’s syndrome. A subsequent amniocentesis test then confirmed that the baby wasn’t Down’s, after all, but later he and I both bled internally and delivery from 26 weeks was mooted.

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In the end, I carried my child almost to full term and gave birth to a healthy baby, but the psychological damage was done. I’d spent most of the pregnancy trying not to get emotionally attached to my son in case I lost him. It was impossible, as he was placed in my arms, to feel anything other than a blankness in my heart where I knew a warm glow should be. It was a nothingness, dulled by drugs but worrying to me, even then, on that hospital bed, through the haze of painkillers.

Of course, I now love him with all my heart and feel a total maternal pride that grows each day. My husband and I say a prayer of thanks in church every Sunday for our healthy boy.

But the first three months after Josh was born were so hard I can’t remember much about them, other than a drowning sensation. When we got home from hospital, my husband and my mother rushed around the house while I sat there numb, staring at the wall. Every time my son cried, I cried, and his daddy or a grandparent would pick him up and beam the smiles at him that I didn’t have.

Most new mothers suffer from chronic tiredness, of course, and I can hear, as I write this, the cries from many readers of “You just have to get on with it”. Believe me, I would have been among your number had I not also experienced such depths of misery. After a week or so, there was no chink of light from behind the clouds, and after three weeks I had a real feeling of panic as I gazed out of the window at “normal” people heading off to work. My mother sent me to the doctor’s to get help.

I was lucky. My GP was fantastic. I had to tick boxes in a questionnaire designed, I imagine, to give the doctor an immediate glimpse of just how bad I was. One question asked: “Do you feel like harming yourself?” Humiliated, but distraught, I ticked “Yes”. My GP asked why, and she looked relieved when I explained that if I could just fall down the stairs and break my leg, I would be absolved from looking after the baby.

I also asked her why, after all my problems leading up to my son’s birth, I wasn’t feeling grateful to have him alive and well in my arms. I hated myself for acting like a spoilt brat, I said, for rejecting the very thing I most wanted. I felt I was just behaving badly, and that everyone around me, although supportive, was quietly mystified by my response. I was sure that the angry “Pull yourself together” chastisements were not far away, and I was desperate to do just that, before they arrived like slaps on my already red face. I sat in that doctor’s room, panicky, confused, full of self-loathing and utterly hopeless and helpless.

My doctor smiled warmly, said she was glad I’d sought help, that PND was common and – those magic words – beyond my control. She advised a low dose of anti-depressants to see if that would help. (I was also offered counselling, which I think would have worked better, but I would have to have waited several weeks for a referral, which was too long.)

And so, gradually, over two to three weeks, I began to rise to the surface of my despair, and surveyed the scene. There was my son, gurgling at anyone who looked his way and waiting patiently for his mother to join him on his little cloud of happiness.

NHS health visitors, who should have disappeared from the scene a couple of weeks after I brought my son home, were still making house calls every couple of days to check up on me, while grandparents, husband and new friends from my National Childbirth Trust course were there most days. The various aches and pains from giving birth began to subside, and I saw that my son was interesting, soft, warm and different every day.

At the suggestion of the health visitors, I joined a baby massage group to get the hands-on experience with my baby that had been sadly lacking. I learnt that his little legs and arms would withstand my clumsy grasp, and our time together in the company of strangers helped us bond.

Now I’m pregnant again, and of course I’m worried I’ll slide down that dark tunnel after the birth of my second son. It doesn’t help that I’ve already had a call from healthcare professionals working in the same office as the social workers who rang me when my son fell off his bed and broke his arm in the summer. They said they have me on record as suffering from depression during my last pregnancy, and how am I?

The phone call worries me: first, the records are wrong as I wasn’t depressed during my pregnancy, but after it, as many mothers are. Secondly, I feel that I’m now being scrutinised by social workers from afar and that, if they already have the wrong information about me, wrong conclusions could be drawn. I know social workers have a difficult job, but I don’t want to be wrongly labelled.

The statistics suggest that you are more likely to suffer PND if you’ve had it previously, but a number of factors have changed for me: I’ve had experience with a small baby and I’m more used to sleep deprivation. I also have a robust toddler waiting at home who deserves a sentient mother. Should I feel myself slipping again, my mother or husband will push me back to the doctor’s.

If any good can come from Felicia Boots’s story, it is that women will be more likely to seek help quickly should a few post-partum tears turn into a torrent they can’t stop.

There is also more the health service could do: it can’t be right that, according to Office of National Statistics figures (2001), the single biggest cause of death in women who are pregnant or have recently given birth is suicide. Thankfully, many maternity units have begun employing psychiatrists to diagnose and treat conditions such as post-natal depression. And according to the psychiatrist and Telegraph columnist Dr Max Pemberton, ''Perinatal psychiatry is now a recognised speciality in medicine. There has also been better training for midwives and health visitors.”

Still, I believe the people best placed to help women are other women who’ve been through it, and are happy to admit that the first three months with a baby can be the hardest they’ll ever face.

For support and advice call 0800 043 2031 or visit pndsupport.co.uk