FILICIDE (multiple): Michigan: Sharon Hinojosa Sentenced to Life

By ED WHITE   11/30/11

DETROIT -- Calling it a "horrendous" crime, a judge sentenced a Detroit-area mother to life in prison Wednesday for setting a fire that trapped and killed two of her children in a mobile home.

Sharon Hinojosa says the tragedy in Huron Township was an accident. But prosecutors accused her of intentionally setting the fire in a bid to improve her relationship with a boyfriend, the father of another child who escaped the blaze in Hinojosa's arms.
Wayne County Circuit Judge Daniel Hathaway said Hinojosa's acts in 2009 "constituted a complete betrayal of what being a mother stands for."
She was convicted earlier this month of first-degree murder in the deaths of son Anthony, 4, and daughter Alayna, 3. The judge said it was "horrendous" and "heinous."
Hinojosa, 31, turned to the courtroom gallery, apologized and said she loved her kids.
"You think you're mourning? I'm mourning, too," she said.
The remarks angered relatives of the victims who moments earlier told the judge about the impact on their lives. Alayna's grandmother, Denise Jones, said it was "cowardly" for Hinojosa to "disregard these children like a bag of garbage."
She said she hopes Hinojosa in prison hears her children asking, "What did we do to you?" to deserve an awful death.
Hinojosa's attorney, Bryan Sherer, declined to comment.Lawyer Ira Harris, reading a statement on behalf of Anthony's grandparents, said the boy often talked about being old enough to ride a bus to school.
"Even wild animals would go to great lengths to protect their young," Harris said.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/01/sharon-hinojosa-sentenced-to-life_n_1122762.html

FILICIDE (multiple attempted): Michigan: Shanda Lou Yenglin

 March 14. 2011 Mike Martindale / The Detroit News

Waterford Township— A 911 emergency recording released today by the Waterford Township Police reveals a teenage girl calmly reporting details of the Feb. 28 incident in which her mother killed herself and tried to kill her four children with carbon monoxide fumes.

"Our mom is passed out in the garage," a girl's voice can be heard telling the 911 operator. "..And she's cold and she can't move or nothing."

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Township Police Chief Dan McCaw told reporters earlier this month how Shanda Lou Yenglin, 37, tried to make her children — aged 10 to 14 — cold by turning down her home's thermostat.

She then served them milkshakes laced with painkillers and sleeping pills and directed them into a van inside the home's closed garage.

But one of the children, a 13-year-old girl, awoke shivering during the night and went back in the house for a blanket, police said.

When she returned to the van, she found her mother lying on the garage floor. The girl woke up a 14-year-old sister who had earlier returned to a bedroom, and then called 911 shortly after 8 a.m.

Once connected, she told the dispatcher she had found her mom unconscious on the floor of the garage at the home

A male dispatcher asks: "Is she breathing?"

The girl answers: "I can't tell."

Chief McCaw said the girls, while conscious, were in rough shape, and the two boys were worse.

"When we got there, the girls were walking around the house, dazed," said McCaw. "I don't know if it was because of the shock of what happened, the carbon monoxide fumes or the drugs. But they definitely were not in good shape."

All four survived. The girls are in a foster home and the boys are in a state facility, McCaw said.

mmartindale@detnews.com

(248) 338-0319

 http://detnews.com/article/20110314/METRO02/103140410/Daughter-s-911-tape-released-in-mom-s-carbon-monoxide-death#ixzz1H4Rb8JBi

FILICIDE (Multiple attempted): Michigan: Shanda Lou Yenglin

BILL LAITNER Mar. 2, 2011 

Was she a child abuser who nearly became a child killer, luring her children toward death with drug-laced milkshakes?

Or was Shanda Lou Yenglin a deeply religious single mother who, feeling she had nowhere to turn, killed herself and hoped her four adopted children would join her in the afterlife?

Those are two descriptions of the 37-year-old Waterford mother surfacing from a bizarre case that unfolded during the weekend and ended tragically Monday morning on a quiet street in Oakland County.

Authorities said Yenglin had a history of child abuse and that she tried to kill her four adopted children in the course of committing suicide Monday in the garage of the family's home near Williams Lake.

According to Waterford police, none of the children was even supposed to be spending the night with Yenglin. She lost custody in May 2010, with the two girls going to live with a foster parent and the boys placed in a state facility, Sgt. Scott Good said. Yenglin was allowed unsupervised daily visits but left messages with the children's custodians at 8 p.m. Saturday that she could not return them because of inclement weather, Good said. Oakland County Family Court Deputy Administrator Lisa Langton said Tuesday that a neglect petition had been filed against Yenglin last year but could not give details.

Her children narrowly survived the carbon monoxide poisoning that killed her, police said. Waterford police said Tuesday that Yenglin gave the children "sleeping or pain type medication" Sunday night, apparently to make them more docile in her attempt to kill them. Police found the home thermostat at 53 degrees and the house cold, part of an apparent ruse to keep the children with her to stay warm in their 1998 Chevrolet van as its engine filled their closed garage with deadly fumes. Police would not release the contents of the suicide note she left on the van's dashboard.

On Monday morning, the 13-year-old girl woke up in the van to find her mother unconscious on the garage floor. She then ran into the house to alert the sleeping 14-year-old girl -- who had not followed her mother into the garage -- who then called the police, Good said.

http://www.freep.com/article/20110302/NEWS03/103020436/0/ENT07/Suicidal-mother-tried-kill-her-kids-drugged-milkshakes?odyssey=nav%7Chead