INFANTICIDE (multiple): New York: Michele Kalina hid 5 newborn bodies

MARYCLAIRE DALE, READING, Pa. (AP) — A woman charged with killing five newborns after hidden pregnancies — and keeping their remains in a locked closet — may seek to be found incompetent to stand trial.
Michele Kalina's public defender raised mental-health issues in court Thursday, delaying the scheduled plea and sentencing of the Reading home-health aide.
Berks County Judge Linda K.M. Ludgate will pursue independent psychiatric testing before ruling on the competency issue. No new court date has been set, and a gag order prevents lawyers from discussing the homicide case.
DNA tests show Kalina, 45, conceived most, if not all, of the babies through an affair with a co-worker that spanned more than a decade. Neither he nor Kalina's husband knew about the pregnancies.
Kalina's teenage daughter found the remains in the closet last year and called police. One set of bones was entombed in cement and the others in a cooler, a plastic tub and a cardboard box.
"It may be the way in which women resolve these dilemmas: 'I'm pregnant again, and I don't want to abort the child. But I don't want anybody to know that I have the child,'" said Geoffrey R. McKee, a forensic psychologist at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine who wrote the book, "Why Mothers Kill."
Women who kill newborns are usually young, first-time mothers who are afraid to reveal their pregnancies, he said. Kalina doesn't fit that demographic, but may share a similar motivation, given the on-again, off-again affair.
Such women are rarely found to be mentally ill, and even when they are, it's often not a factor, he said.
"More often, it's (the death) designed to avoid being detected as pregnant," McKee told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
Kalina is charged with one count each of criminal homicide and aggravated assault, and multiple counts of abuse of a corpse and concealing the death of a child.
She started dating the co-worker in 1997 and soon appeared to be gaining weight. She told him she had a cyst, which she later said had been drained, according to police affidavits. The "cyst" recurred three or four more times over the years, the boyfriend told police.
Kalina, who is petite, had no prenatal care during the five pregnancies, and it's not clear where she gave birth.
In addition to those babies, Kalina had a sixth secret pregnancy that culminated with the 2003 birth in a Reading hospital of a baby girl that she gave up for adoption. That child was also conceived with the boyfriend, DNA tests show.
A prosecutor described him last year as "overwhelmed and shocked" by news of the pregnancies.
Kalina had borne two children with her husband Jeffrey, in 1987 and 1991. The oldest had cerebral palsy and died of natural causes in 2000.
In 2008, the family moved from a house to an apartment, and Kalina allegedly brought the remains with her. She warned her husband and daughter not to open the locked closet, police said.
At work, she held the same job for 15 years, earning praise from both her employer and families of the elderly patients she nursed. Yet she conceded in police interviews that she was an alcoholic, sometimes prone to blackouts.
The U.S. legal system, in recent years, has hardened its view of women who kill their children.
In 1999, 70-year-old Marie Noe of Philadelphia was sentenced to five years of house arrest and 20 years of probation for killing eight babies decades earlier.
"All I can figure is that I'm ungodly sick," Noe said in a police confession, in which she admitted smothering three of her children with pillows.
There is far less empathy today, after a line of U.S. filicide cases that includes Susan Smith, the South Carolina woman who drove her two children into a lake in 1994; Christina Riggs, who smothered her two young sons in Arkansas in 1997; and Andrea Yates of Houston, who drowned her five children in a bathtub in 2001.
Yates is serving a life sentence after the jury rejected her insanity defense. Smith, sentenced to 30 years to life, is eligible for parole in 2025.
Riggs was executed in 2000.
Kalina, like other women accused of infanticide, appears to have been socially isolated. A native of Rockland County, N.Y., she had no extended family nearby, and no close women friends have emerged.
According to McKee, more women killed or abandoned newborns before the advent of legal abortion and safe haven laws. Yet no one really knows how often it occurs today.
"It's still a huge problem in the sense that we really don't know how many abandoned neonates there are," he said.
Kalina's secrets went undiscovered for years, and were only disturbed by her daughter's curiosity, and defiance.
And another nurse's aide, this one in France, admitted last year that she had suffocated eight of her newborns, before burying the bodies in her garden or hiding them in her garage. New owners made the discovery. Dominique Cottrez, 46, told police she'd had a bad experience with doctors with her first pregnancy, and never again wanted to see one again.
Their stories stand out, even in the already disturbing caselaw on women who kill newborns.
"Neonaticides are typically committed by first-time mothers," McKee said. "It's very odd for them to continue to do this."
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gHOVZmV-CDulmY8DIh9eJ_9Ldj6g?docId=637b5147558a4f4d82025c6b841c83f7

NEONATICIDE (attempted): New York City: newborn baby survived after being thrown into a trash compactor

22 May 2011
A newborn baby survived after being thrown into a trash compactor, police revealed today.
A Brooklyn superintendent heard cries coming from a plastic bag in his building, and called police at 9:20am.
Responding officers say they found a newborn baby inside a bag attached to the trash chute at the Walt Whitman Houses projects.
They said they did not know how far the child fell, but suggested the plastic bag may have broken his fall.
Police say they took the baby to Brooklyn Hospital for treatment, and say he is currently in 'stable condition'.
MailOnline.com asked a New York Police Department spokesperson if they had been able to identify the child's name.
She said: 'He’s a newborn, he probably doesn’t even have a name'.
The police spokesperson said the investigation is currently ongoing, so she couldn't share any details.
Officers are thought to be canvassing the neighbourhood and area hospitals, searching for information about the child and his parents, who are not known.
Regarding whoever put the baby in the chute, a local resident, Tisha Holmes, 26, told the New York Daily News: 'That's just sad and pitiful. They need to burn in hell, that's what they need to do.
'People are shocked here. They could've given it to anybody. Ain't nobody in their civil mind would do that'.

 

A woman who lives in the building, Fontaine Simon, 38, told the paper: 'Oh God, I hope the baby is alright.

'I've been living here for 30 years, nothing ever happened like this before - never'.

Scene: Walt Whitman Houses in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, where police say they found a child in the trash chute

The Walt Whitman Houses are located at 287 Myrtle Avenue in the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn, New York, where they are bordered by St. Edward's Street and Park and Carlton Avenues.
They consist of 15 buildings, all 6 or 13-stories tall, with 1,636 apartments housing about 4,276 people.
The 18.44-acre complex was built in 1944, and is named after the great American poet Walt Whitman.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1389759/Newborn-baby-SURVIVES-tossed-Brooklyn-trash-compactor-Walt-Whitman-House-projects.html#ixzz1NAWvXpHD

FILICIDE (multiple): New York: Lashanda Armstrong drives van and children into Hudson River

 Apr 13 2011

NEWBURGH, N.Y. — A 10-year-old boy escaped through the window of a minivan and swam to shore to get help just as his mother drove the van into New York's Hudson River, killing herself and three other children, police said Wednesday. Lashanda Armstrong, 25, drove the minivan into the river off a boat ramp in the city of Newburgh about 8 p.m. Tuesday, shortly after a domestic incident, police said. The van went into the river just six blocks from where the family lived in this faded city about 100 kilometres north of New York City. Fire Chief Michael Vatter said a passer-by saw Lashaun Armstrong come out of the river, picked up the soaking wet boy and took him to a nearby fire department. Vatter said the boy was so distraught that he had difficulty talking but ultimately told firefighters what happened. Rescuers went immediately to the river but it was too late to save the four victims. In the van with Lashanda Armstrong were Landon Pierre, 5, Lance Pierre, 2, and 11-month-old Lainaina Pierre, police said. Her husband and the father of the three dead children, Jean Pierre, was questioned. Police would not give details of the interview or say if the father had been charged with anything. Shortly before she drove the van into the river, a relative called police to report a domestic incident at Armstrong's apartment. By the time police got there, Armstrong and her children were gone. They said there was no history of domestic violence at the address. Firefighters and police officers responded to the 7 C river with boats. Divers searched for the minivan for about an hour before finding it submerged in 3 metres of water about 25 metres offshore. They used a heavy-duty tow truck to pull it up the boat ramp and onto land. Everyone inside was dead. The relative who called police, Lashanda Armstrong's aunt Angela Gilliam, told reporters that she spoke to her niece earlier Tuesday and she was “not too good.” Gilliam later called police in Newburgh about her niece's well-being. Police acknowledge they got a call about a domestic incident but provided no details. By the time police got there, Armstrong had already taken the fatal plunge with her children. Gilliam said the 10-year-old boy who survived is “doing good” and is “taking it all in.” Armstrong lived in an apartment in a gritty part of this humble river city. Several neighbours on Wednesday recalled her as an attentive mother who balanced care of her children with an outside job. They were shocked by the news. “She was a very good mom,” said Tina Claybourne, who lives nearby. “She took care of her kids. She always was with her kids.” Neighbours said they did not know the woman's name or where she worked. They said the children seemed energetic and happy and would play on the block and ride bikes. “You know kids, they make noise, they play around,” said Shantay Means, a downstairs neighbour. The boat ramp was unguarded by gate or chain. There was no sign that anything tragic had happened save for a single teddy bear left at the end of a dock that runs alongside the boat ramp. Newburgh, which has about 30,000 residents, sits on the western shore of the part of the river that runs south through New York state and eventually splits New York and New Jersey. A similar incident occurred in 2006, about 30 kilometres south of Newburgh. In 2007, Victor Han, of Queens, was sentenced to three years of probation after pleading guilty to child endangerment. Han admitted he knew he was putting his daughters at risk when he stepped out of the family minivan on Bear Mountain in June 2006, leaving them with their mother, 35-year-old Hejin Han. She then drove the Honda Odyssey off a 300-foot drop, killing herself. The mother was killed but the children somehow survived the plunge. It's also reminiscent of the case of a South Carolina woman who drowned her young sons in 1994. Susan Smith is serving a life sentence for killing 3-year-old Michael and 14-month-old Alex by strapping them into their car seats and driving the car into a pond. Smith originally claimed she was carjacked before the truth came out. http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/973973--10-year-old-escapes-as-mom-drives-kids-into-river

FILICIDE: New York City: Carlotta Brett-Pierce

Marchella Pierce, a 4-year-old girl who weighed just 18 pounds, was found dead in her family's Brooklyn apartment, on Sept. 2, 2010. The girl's mother, Carlotta Brett-Pierce, has been charged with second-degree assault and endangering the welfare of the child after her body was found bruised and severely malnourished.
In a report released in early October, the New York's child welfare agency found that the girl apparently had gone months without a visit from child welfare workers assigned to monitor her well-being, despite indications that she could be at risk.
The problems in the Marchella Pierce case extended to an outside health care provider hired by the city to monitor her family until its contract expired in June 2010.
The girl was born more than three months prematurely, had severely underdeveloped lungs and spent most of her life in hospitals. A twin sister died at birth. Marchella needed the help of a tracheal tube when she was released from the hospital in February.
A preliminary report outlines a series of failures by the agency and the private provider that missed or ignored signals that the girl's mother — who had a known history of substance abuse and who continued to fail drug tests even after the agency became involved with the family — seemed incapable of tending to her daughter's serious medical needs.
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/marchella_pierce/index.html

FILICIDE: New York: Carlotta Brett-Pierce: Two ACS Workers Charged With Homicide In Child's Death, Grandmother Faces Manslaughter Charges

Last year, severely malnourished four-year-old Marcella Pierce died in her Bedford-Stuyvesant apartment weighing a scant 18 pounds and showing signs of other traumas. Her mother, Carlotta Brett-Pierce, was arrested and charged with murder, manslaughter and assault, but yesterday prosecutors charged three more people, including two Administration for Children's Services case workers and the girl's own grandmother, with contributing to her death. "Baby Marchella might be alive today had these ACS workers attended to her case with the basic levels of care it deserved, or had her grandmother stepped in and put a stop to the shocking abuse she is charged with facilitating," said Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes.

Two former ACS employees were indicted on charges of criminally negligent homicide—it's believed to be the first time in the city’s history that child welfare workers had been charged with homicide in a child’s death—and Marcella's grandmother, Loretta Brett, was also indicted on manslaughter and other charges. Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes said, “I said at the time we announced the indictment of Marchella’s mother that this was not going to be an investigation that was going away. We are going to find out at long last what they’re doing at ACS to make sure there are no more child fatalities."

The indictment charges that the grandmother witnessed the little girl being tied to a bed and her crib many, many times. The indictment also charges that former ACS caseworker Damon Adams failed to make nearly all of the mandated biweekly visits to the Bedford-Stuyvesant home, and falsified ACS records to show he did; Chereece Bell, his former ACS supervisor, is accused of failing to properly oversee and monitor Adams' work with Marchella and her family.

In the wake of Marcella's death, a blame war ensued between ACS and nonprofit organization Child Development Support Corporation (CDSC) over who was more to blame for the death. Hynes said that he was convening a special grand jury to investigate “evidence of alleged systemic failures” at ACS. Among the cases they may be reviewing are: Major Gonzalez, an 11-month-old who died of viral pneumonia in Dec. 2009, and whose parents spent six months in jail for neglect; Jashya Brown a two-year-old victim of battered child syndrome who was found dead in August 2008; and Nixzmary Brown, another severely malnourished seven-year-old whose parents are both serving long sentences in jail for her death.

http://gothamist.com/2011/03/24/two_acs_workers_and_grandmother_cha.php

FILICIDE: New York: Migdalia Veras

8th March 2011

The mother who allegedly stabbed her disabled son to death with a foot-long knife told police that he begged her for months to kill him.
Migdalia Veras, 57, from New York, allegedly told detectives that her son Rene, 39, wanted to die as he was afraid that he would be left alone to battle cerebral palsy if she died first.
Veras is said to have stabbed her son in the stomach last week before turning the knife on herself in a botched suicide attempt at their housing authority apartment in Queens.

Statement: Veras made the confession to police from her hospital bed in New York Hospital Medical Centre where she was taken after she stabbed herself in the chest

Stabbed: 38-year-old Rene Vera was wheelchair-bound because of his cerebral palsy. His mother told police he begged her to kill him

HOW CEREBRAL PALSY TAKES ITS TOLL

Around 2-3 of the 1,000 children born in the U.S. each year has cerebral palsy.
It is caused by damage to the developing brain before or during birth.
There are several different types, but the most common is spastic cerebral palsy in which the body's muscles are stiff or weak.
In dyskinetic cerebral palsy, sufferers struggle to control their muscles and may have difficulty speaking.
It ranges in severity, but some patients struggle to do even the most basic tasks because movement is so restricted.
There is no cure, but the condition does not get worse over time, although adult sufferers can develop more muscle stiffness and arthritis.
It is a common misconception that sufferers have learning difficulties. Many have above average intelligence but struggle to communicate.

Police interviewed her at New York Hospital Medical Centre where she was taken after she stabbed herself in the chest.
Her statement was then piped into Queens Supreme Court via video feed on Monday.
According to the New York Daily News, she told officers from her hospital bed: 'He asked me to kill him.'
She claims that two months ago, they were both sitting on his bed when he first asked her: 'Rene handed me the knife and repeated, "do it".'
Talking about the day he was killed she allegedly said: 'I told him I did not want to do it. He then took the knife and stabbed himself. He then kept begging me not to leave him alone and kept asking me to kill him.
'I then took the knife that was on top of the bed. I picked up the knife and stabbed him in the chest.'
'I then tried to go with my son by cutting my wrists but I could not do it because my hands were shaking.'
Residents at the apartment block the Veras lived in told the Daily News that Rene was unable to communicate and simply smiled at people to acknowledge them.
She is being held without bail on a second-degree murder charge and faces 25 years to life in prison.
The case continues.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1364207/My-son-begged-kill-Mother-confessed-stabbing-disabled-son-death.html?printingPage=true

FILICIDE: New York: Calotta Brett-Pierce: Conviction of mother of slain Marchella Pierce could hinge on young son's testimony

BY OREN YANIV DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Thursday, February 3rd 2011, 4:00 AM

 

Marino for News

 

Carlotta Brett-Pierce is accused of beating and starving her 4-year-old daughter Marchella to death.

The words of a son could doom a Monster Mom accused of starving and beating his 4-year-old sister to death.
"Very devastating" testimony against Carlotta Brett-Pierce by her 5-year-old son led to the Brooklyn woman's grand jury indictment, a source said Wednesday.
Prosecutors also plan to show the trial jury "horrific" photos of little Marchella, who weighed only 18 pounds when her battered body was discovered in September.
During a court appearance, Brett-Pierce, 30, displayed no remorse for Marchella - just impatience.
"Can you please start a trial immediately," she said. "I'm tired of this. I know what I did and did not do ... did not hurt my baby. I did not kill my baby."
Marchella suffered repeated beatings, was deprived food and water and force-fed medications, the indictment charges.
Brett-Pierce, who also has a 1-year-old baby, turned on the waterworks when Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Patricia DiMango blasted her for writing letters to her surviving kids in violation of an order of protection.
"I said to them that I love them and I miss them," Brett-Pierce, her eyes welling up with tears. "I'm extremely close to my children."
Brett-Pierce is due back in court Feb. 22. She also tested positive for marijuana after she was arrested, assistant district attorney Jacqueline Kagan said.
The Pierce household was being monitored by the Administration of Children's Services when Marchella died. Now it's role in the child's death is under investigation.


 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2011/02/03/2011-02-03_conviction_of_mother_of_slain_marchella_pierce_could_hinge_on_young_sons_testimo.html#ixzz1D6wVq0kW