FILICIDE: Australia

Yuri Joakimidis, 7 April 2011

Family violence has, in recent years, been subjected to a very short sighted restricted analysis that is based on stereotypes of victims and abusers. Typically, the "victim" is depicted as a timid, oppressed female and the abuser is portrayed as a brutish, aggressive male that often assaults or even murders children. But such gender stereotypes are dangerous, and leave groups of people suffering and vulnerable because they do not fit the pigeon hole prescriptions that dominate family violence discourse and support organisations in our country.
As it should be the homicide of children is considered to be a detestable crime in our community where they are seen as being very vulnerable and especially susceptible to abduction, physical and sexual assault and murder.
Maternal filicide, defined as child murder by mothers, is a problem that transcends national boundaries. Mothers who kill their children often use the defence of depression or insanity, but are all mothers who kill their children insane? The short answer is “No,” and some courts are beginning to recognise that fact as the following transcribed media accounts of recent criminal proceedings reveal:
“Donna Fitchett called the murder of her two boys her 'greatest act of love', but in sentencing late last year Supreme Court Justice Elizabeth Curtain told her it was her 'greatest act of betrayal'.
“Fitchett drugged, smothered and strangled Thomas Fitchett, 11, and his brother Matthew, 9, at their Balwyn home in September 2005. Justice Curtain sentenced Fitchett to 27 years in jail, with a non-parole period of 18 years.“...
“Her defence argued she was mentally diminished at the time of the killings and thought what she was doing was right. But Justice Curtain rejected that argument because Fitchett had written a note detailing the crime.“ “A 43-year-old Brisbane woman, who could not be identified, was found guilty after a trial in the Supreme Court in Brisbane earlier last year of murdering her six-year-old son and 10-year-old daughter at their home at Sandstone Point, near Bribie Island. She was also found guilty of the attempted murder of her 16-year-old son, and was sentenced to life in jail.“
“The mother gave the children crushed sleeping tablets before putting them in the back seat of the car, attaching a garden hose to the exhaust, and switching on the ignition. The bodies of the children, who died from carbon monoxide poisoning, were found on November 22, 2002.”
“During the trial, the Brisbane court was told the mother decided to kill herself and the children as an act of revenge towards her ex-husband. She had been angry, the court was told, after being issued with a Family Court order stating they would spend Christmas Day with their dad.”
“The Court of Appeal unanimously dismissed her challenge of the murder conviction because the woman had not proved she was unable to control her actions.“
("Mum who gassed children loses appeal", by Christine Flatley, The Australian, December 2010).
It has been said that the catalyst for the Family Law Amendment (Family Violence) Bill 2010 was the tragic 2009 death of little Darcey Freeman, at the hands of her father. According to critics of current family law favouring shared parenting including Debbie Kirkwood from the Domestic Violence Resource Centre fathers pose a risk to their children and the selected use of instances where fathers have harmed their children strongly suggests a blinkered prejudice. (see, "Men's Murderous Revenge", Debbie Kirkwood, SMH March 31 2011).
However, they don't. When the divorcing mother Gabriela Garcia jumped off the same Melbourne bridge just seven months earlier, with her 22 month old baby son Oliver there were no tortured calls for a public inquiry. The silence regarding the death of this infant boy by the supposed champions of children's interests was and still is deafening.
The heartwrenching murders of Darcey Freeman and Oliver Garcia are the product of despair or incomprehensible madness and should not be a catalyst for gender wars. To borrow the common-sense words of social commentator Bettina Arndt " Neither sex has a monopoly on vice or virtue."
And to set the record straight. Do I have any sympathy for the Arthur Freeman's or Gabriela Garcia's of this world? Not one bit. Nothing can ever excuse the murder of the innocent.
The Howard government's 2006 shared parenting legislation specifically refers to "the need to protect the child from the risk of physical or psychological harm caused by family violence or child abuse" [s60CC 2(b)]. The legislation also clearly establishes that where shared care has been ordered by a court, the presumption of shared parental responsibility is dependent on there being no family violence or child abuse [s61DA 2(a)]. Putting a child into a possibly violent situation contradicts the law. So what are the one sided exaggerations peddled by shared parenting detractors all about?
Despite the posturing I suggest the motivation is not a primary concern on the safety of children but is grounded in a mean-spirited anti father ideology that assumes the worst behaviour of the most extreme individual is the norm. Family law should not be based on this presumption of pathology.
Every child centred healthy individual knows that children want and have a right to the love of both their parents in equal measure. It is past time to entrench this principle in law.
The article "When Dads Get Deadly" (Christine Jackman, Australian, 17 September 2003) provides chilling statistics on filicide that challenge conventional wisdom.
Referring to a recent Sydney murder/suicide tragedy Christine Jackman writes:

[D]espite the disproportionate amount of publicity these crimes attract when they occur; murder-suicides committed by a father are among the rarest forms of child homicide. Australian Institute of Criminology statistics show there were 270 child homicide incidents in Australia from July 1989 to June 1999, involving 287 identified offenders and resulting in the deaths of 316 children under 15…
When children (younger than 15) are killed in Australia, they are most likely to be killed by a family member (66.9 per cent), primarily a parent (94.2 per cent)," AIC research analyst Jenny Mouzos says in her report 'Homicidal Encounters.' Although fathers are responsible for most cases of filicide these numbers are inflated by the number of non-biological fathers who kill children.
When Mouzos crunched figures on the distribution of parents who killed children by gender and biological ties, she found biological mothers posed a more lethal risk to their own. Biological mothers account for about 35 per cent of all filicides (about the same proportion as stepfathers and de factos), while biological fathers account for 29 per cent.

What is more according to Men's Health Australia the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) had cause to correct an error in its National Homicide Monitoring Program 2006-07 Annual Report. "The original report stated that 7 homicides involved a mother and 15 involved male family members. "

The rectified report now states that:
11 homicides involved a mother and 11 homicides involved a male family member. When the 'male family member' category was broken down, 5 perpetrators were biological fathers, while another 5 five were de-facto partners of the mother who lived with the child (one father murdered two children). No child victims were killed by a complete stranger in 2006-07.
Of the 14 offenders who who committed suicide following the 2006-07 homicide incident four (29%) had child victims. In all four cases the offender was the custodial parent (two mothers; two fathers).
The usage of male family member and mother is not a useful way of classifying relationship between a child homicide victim and their offender. In future reports we will employ classifications that provide a more detailed classification of the relationship between child victims and offenders" the AIC acknowledged.

Further, according to a study published in 2009 by the Medical Journal of Australia that examined instances of family homicide/revenge/homicide-suicide in NSW between 1991-2005 men were the perpetrators of child homicide in ten cases while women were the perpetrators in seven instances. Notably, the study did not indicate the offenders biological relationships to the child victims.
With respect to child victimisation inside the boundaries of child abuse coverage by government agencies often a gender-neutral term such as ‘parent’ or ‘caregiver’ is used and there is no further discussion as to whether it was a natural father or natural mother who perpetrated the assaults or neglect. With this problem in mind the decision taken in 1997 by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW; Broadbent & Bentley 1997) not to publish data indicating the gender of child abuse perpetrators must be reversed.
The action was taken just one year after the figures were first published in 1996 (968 men and 1138 women). The omission was justified on the wobbly basis that only one state (WA) and two territories (ACT & NT) had furnished statistics and a lack of publishing space (several sentences). Curiously, these lame reasons did not stop the publication of the statistics in 1996. In fact, Angus & Hall (AIHW; 1996) observed that the information base provide an extra dimension to data previously presented.
Should the AIHW decision represents one-sided reporting then such slanted views have no place in the Australian landscape and in scientific endeavours. Furthermore, why do state child protection annual reports fail to provide information on the numbers of natural mother and natural father victimisers in each category of established child maltreatment. The designating of perpetrators as "parent" or "non parent" does not suffice and it should not require a Freedom of Information (FIO) request before the statistics are released as was the case in WA. And yes, when the data was disclosed the figures finished off the widely peddled myth that natural fathers present the major risk for their children’s well-being.
The Western Australian figures shed light on who is likely to abuse children in families and are in line with overseas findings. The data show there were 1505 substantiations of child abuse in WA during the period 2007-8. Natural parents were responsible for 37% of total cases. Of these, mothers are identified as the perpetrator of neglect and abuse in a total of 73% of verified cases.
 Plainly, the censoring of such vital data by most state and federal authorities can negatively impact on the formation of child abuse policy and the appropriate allocation of scant resources. In the U.S child protection authorities are not so coy as their local counterparts and as a matter of routine publish the information for public and legislative consumption.

Yuri Joakimidis represents the Joint Parenting Association.

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/print.asp?article=11867

FILICIDE (attempted): Colorado: Samantha Salaz

SCOTT HARRISON: April 8, 2011

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- Colorado Springs police said Samantha Salaz, 19, and her aunt, Mary Horsley, 50, were arrested on Thursday in connection with the attempted murder and felony child abuse of Salaz' 20-month-old daughter, Alexis Salaz.
KRDO NewsChannel 13 obtained a copy of the probable cause arrest affidavit and it says the girl was pronounced dead at the hospital. However, life-saving efforts continued and Alexis was later revived.
Police said Alexis was found unconscious and not breathing shortly after 2 p.m. Thursday at 2423 Farragut Ave. Police were told Alexis had drowned in the toilet. Alexis was taken to Memorial's pediatric intensive care unit and is in critical condition, according to police.

Police said their investigation revealed the child's injuries were intentional and not accidental. According to the affidavit, investigators found evidence that Alexis' wrists, ankles, back and mouth had been taped. She also had bruises on her legs, arms, face and forehead.
The affidavit explains that Brandon Salaz, 7, a male child in the home, alerted the family by saying, "Lexie could talk but now she can't, she is a different color, something is wrong." Her mother and aunt said they were sleeping at the time.
Alexis' mother said she found her daughter on the bathroom floor, partially in the shower. The women called for help and performed CPR on the girl until paramedics arrived.
Mary Elliott, a neighbor across the street, said she saw Alexis being taken to an ambulance. "I thought she was a doll on someone's arm," Elliott said. "I didn't have my glasses on."
In a later police interview, Samantha Salaz said she found Alexis lying in the shower face up with strips of electrical tape across her eyes and mouth, and binding her wrists and ankles. Salaz said cold water was splashing on her daughter's face.
Salaz also told police Horsley dragged Alexis across the floor by the ankles, then picked up the child and dropped her on her head. Salzaz said Horsley often placed Alexis in the shower to discipline her.
Salaz explained the bruises on Alexis by saying the child is clumsy and falls often. Salaz also accused Horsley of hitting Alexis with a belt, a brush and a spatula. Salaz said she didn't try to interfere with the treatment because Horsley owns the home and was in charge.
Brandon told police Horsley got mad at Alexis when the toddler knocked over her aunt's drink, and said he would be in trouble from Horsley if he ever told anyone about what happened to Alexis.
Brandon's sister, Cheyenne, 6, also was in the home and said Horsley applied tape to Alexis.
During a court appearance at the El Paso County Jail on Friday, Samantha Salaz and Horsley heard the charges against them. Horsley said, "I was nowhere near the child at the time of this." A judge told her to respond only to questions asked.

http://www.krdo.com/news/27475489/detail.html?source=cosp

INFANTICIDE: South Africa: Mapaseka Seoka killed 9 day old daughter with scissors

Apr 4, 2011 | Ntwaagae Seleka

 

Judge Mbha sentenced Mapaseka Seoka, 28, to 12 years in jail after she pleaded guilty to killing her 9 -day-old daughter Ditlhoriso.

Half of the sentence was suspended for five years on condition that she is not convicted of assault, abuse or killing a child.
On March 8 Seoka told the court how she stabbed her daughter multiple times with a pair of scissors.
She said on August 18 2008 she took Ditlhoriso to an open veld in Newclare, where she killed the baby.
Seoka said she could not remember how many times she stabbed her child.
According to a postmortem report read by Mbha, Ditlhoriso sustained numerous wounds to her throat and ribs.
"I ask myself what was going on in your mind when you repeatedly stabbed a beautiful child using brutal force. Even animals don't behave that way with their young.
"My mind gets boggled with every stab that was inflicted by her mother," Mbha said.
Seoka was initially charged with killing her two children, her 14-month-old son Lebohang and Ditlhoriso. Charges against her for the murder of Lebohang were provisionally withdrawn pending further investigation.
"Considering the cruel and vicious way the child was killed, I have considered that direct imprisonment is suitable for you.
"The explanation that you had no means of supporting the baby and that the father of the child had left you for another woman does not justify your conduct," Mbha said.
Seoka's 9-month-old son Onkemetse will be left in the care of her mother and sister while she serves her sentence in jail
http://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/2011/04/04/judge-gives-mom-12-years-for-killing-her-baby

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 City: Death of Marchella Pierce: When Blame Isn’t Enough

OLIVIA A. GOLDEN April 7, 2011
Olivia A. Golden, the director of the District of Columbia Child and Family Services Agency from 2001 to 2004, is a fellow at the Urban Institute and the author of “Reforming Child Welfare.”

THE death of Marchella Pierce, a 4-year-old girl in Brooklyn who was beaten, malnourished and tied to a bed, has again aroused anger over child welfare in New York City. Her mother stands accused of murder, and a caseworker and a supervisor were charged last month with criminally negligent homicide.
Reading about Marchella’s death in September brought back painful memories. When I was the director of child welfare in the District of Columbia I often woke up at 3 a.m., fearing all that could go wrong. During my tenure, there were increases in adoptions and speedier investigations, and more children went to live with foster families rather than in institutions. But substandard care and terrible cases also continued.
Because there is so much to fix, improvements and calamities can happen simultaneously in long-troubled child welfare systems. In Washington, where I took over from a court-appointed receiver, the work ranged from reducing caseloads to overhauling information technology, contracting, licensing and personnel systems. On good days, we reminded ourselves that it was all worth it. But when a child was hurt or killed, we often reacted defensively, fearing that a misdirected public outcry could undercut our plans for reform.
After I left that job, I kept looking for solutions. For ideas, I examined institutions like airlines and some hospitals that have reduced deaths and injuries. Through rigorous data analysis, they have developed systemic approaches to safety, focusing on clear communication, minimum-staffing requirements and “fail-safe” strategies to reduce the consequences of inevitable human error. Such strategies — including checklists and passing on information at crucial moments like shift changes — can be applied to protecting children.
Findings from the Institute of Medicine, the Commonwealth Fund and other organizations point to several lessons from safety initiatives in these fields:
• You can’t fix a systemwide problem by simply blaming or retraining individuals. When systems are broken, workers respond in counterproductive ways. They try “workarounds,” as when a nurse guesses at a doctor’s unreadable handwriting on a prescription because she is afraid to ask. Or they withhold information to avoid responsibility, wanting someone else to make a decision even if it is wrong. Blaming individuals can also make it harder to recruit and keep the most qualified employees. (In child welfare, talented caseworkers too often give up on investigating troubled families and gravitate to handling adoptions.)
• You can’t learn what’s wrong with the system from just one case. Understanding what to fix requires analyzing many cases, including deaths, injuries and “near misses.” That is why airline safety analysts collect information about maintenance problems and planes that come too close to each other on the runways or in the air, and why hospitals study medication errors. Looking just at Marchella’s death focuses attention on the caseworker, while looking at more cases gets us closer to understanding trends and patterns.
• You can’t understand problems and fix them unless you create a culture in which employees share information without fear. The Department of Veterans Affairs increased reporting of potentially dangerous errors by promising hospital staff members they would not be punished unless the mistake was intentional or criminal or involved substance abuse. Pilots who anonymously report an unsafe episode receive a number they can use in an investigation to show that they made a report, shielding them from punishment in most circumstances.
These insights can yield simple fixes. In 2005, for example, the Illinois inspector general found that a failure to identify parents’ mental health and substance abuse problems was a common feature in child deaths. Harried caseworkers who had to substantiate a complaint of abuse or neglect didn’t have enough time to thoroughly investigate whether drug addiction and mental illness were involved. When state forms required them to choose yes or no in those first hectic days, they chose no — and often no one came back to help the families. So the inspector general urged the state to give workers another option, one that would indicate a need for continuing assessment in these in-between cases.
But we need to aim even higher. The Department of Health and Human Services should create a national commission to review deaths and serious injuries to children from abuse and neglect. Among other things, it should examine practices in sectors with strong safety records; look at deficiencies in access by parents to drug counseling and psychiatric care; and recommend procedures for caseworkers to report mistakes anonymously without getting blamed.
For too long, we have had a stalemate: Child welfare experts, worried that anger over high-profile deaths often leads to the unnecessary removal of children from their homes to an overloaded foster care system, are reluctant to talk about systemic safety improvements. Meanwhile, the number of children who die each year from abuse or neglect in the United States — an estimated 1,770 in 2009, or 2.3 deaths for every 100,000 children — has been rising.
There is a way out. Making sweeping policy changes and scapegoating individuals are not the best way to enhance safety, but rather, clear-headed, evidence-driven examination of the resources, conditions and communication that guide decision-making in the workplace. That way Marchella’s death will not become just another example of the cycle of outrage and failure.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/08/opinion/08golden.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

FILICIDE: California: Rosondra Marie Clay killed 5 year old disabled son

April 11 2011
VICTORVILLE (AP) —  A mother accused of neglecting and starving her disabled son pleaded guilty Friday to involuntary manslaughter in the boy’s death and will be sentenced to time already served, the Victorville Daily Press reported.
Rosondra Marie Clay, 30, accepted an offer to plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter in the death of 5-year-old Kevin Baldwin and Superior Court Judge Jules Fleuret accepted the plea deal Friday, the newspaper reported.
Clay has already served ten months in jail and will be released April 29 when she is sentenced to eleven months’ time served.
Baldwin had cerebral palsy and weighed just 15 pounds when he died from severe malnutrition at the age of 5 in July 2008.
“It’s one of those cases, there was strong evidence she wasn’t guilty of anything,” Deputy Public Defender David Sanders, Clay’s attorney told the newspaper. “At the same time, it’s one of those cases if you had gone to trial, because it’s an emotional case, a jury could have found her guilty of second-degree murder.”
Clay had been charged with murder and could have faced up to 25 years to life in prison, if convicted.
Sanders said Child Protective Services agents visited their house three days before the child’s death and found nothing wrong with him.
Baldwin had severe spastic cerebral palsy and he had no muscular control, Sanders told the newspaper. It was difficult to feed the child because he had no control over his tongue, Sanders said.
Because of Baldwin’s medical condition, he was receiving assistance from various county agencies.
http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2011/04/01/mom-accused-of-manslaughter-in-disabled-sons-death-gets-sentenced-to-time-served/

INFANTICIDE: China: Casualties of China’s One Child Policy

LESLEY DOWNER: April 1, 2011 Lesley Downer is a British journalist who writes on Asia. Her latest book is a novel, “The Courtesan and the Samurai.”

 

Jane Brown:

 

In 1989, the Chinese writer and broadcaster Xinran was in a remote mountain village in Shandong Province having dinner with the headman when she heard cries from an adjoining room, where his daughter-in-law was giving birth. A while later, as the midwife collected her fee, Xinran noticed a movement in the slops bucket. “To my absolute horror,” she recalls, “I saw a tiny foot poking out of the pail.” But she was the only one who was shocked. “It’s not a child,” the headman’s wife told her. “If it was, we’d be looking after it, wouldn’t we? It’s a girl baby, and we can’t keep it.”

The traditional Chinese belief that, as Xinran puts it, “you do not count as a human being unless you have a son” to carry on the family line has been severely intensified by the Communist government’s one-child policy, promulgated in 1979 in an effort to control the country’s population growth. Since having more than one child became illegal in many areas, families choose to get rid of girl after girl until the desired male child is born.

Xinran sees painful evidence of this on a train trip when she meets a husband traveling with his wife and their little daughter. As the train is leaving the station, she looks out the window and sees the child sitting alone on the platform. Later she discovers that these seemingly devoted parents have abandoned their daughter — the fourth to be jettisoned in this way — in hopes that the next child the mother bears will be a boy. The Chinese call such people “extra birth guerrillas,” since they are trying to start over in places where no one will know them or their family history.
The author of “The Good Women of China” and other books that have been translated into English, Xinran was a radio journalist in Nanjing until moving to Britain in 1997. Before her departure, her program for women, “Words on the Night Breeze,” had millions of listeners: at that time, few Chinese owned televisions and many were illiterate, so radio journalists reached far more people than their colleagues on television or at newspapers. Xinran received hundreds of letters and phone calls, and told some of her correspondents’ harrowing stories on air.
Her program — and now this book —gave a voice to some of the poorest women in Chinese society, whose stories would otherwise never be heard. Among them are women like Kumei, a dishwasher who twice tried to kill herself because she’d been forced to drown her baby daughters. When a child is born, Kumei explains, the midwife prepares a bowl of warm water — called Killing Trouble water, for drowning the child if it’s a girl, or Watering the Roots bath, for washing him if it’s a boy.
Xinran also investigates Chinese orphanages, for many of which the word “Dickensian” would be totally inadequate. The children abandoned there are almost always girls, and they regularly arrive with burns between their legs, marks made as the midwife holds the newborn under an oil lamp to check her sex. Mothers forced to abandon their babies often leave mementos in their clothing, hoping the children will be able to trace them later on, but the orphanages routinely throw these sad tokens away.
“Message From an Unknown Chinese Mother” is full of heart-rending tales. They are raw and shocking, simply told and augmented with passages that provide information about matters like the one-child policy, the history of orphanages and Chinese adoption laws.
Xinran (who has founded a charity called the Mothers’ Bridge of Love, for Western families who adopt Chinese children) is so clearly well intentioned that it seems churlish to snipe at her. Nevertheless, sometimes her repeated references to her own emotional reactions, like breaking down in tears because her own mother never hugged her, become a little hard to take. One can imagine her being very comfortable on Oprah Winfrey’s sofa. She also reprints gushing letters sent to her by adoptive mothers. Then again, it’s quite possible that Xinran means for her book to be judged not as a piece of literature but as a polemic. And it is a very powerful polemic indeed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/03/books/review/book-review-message-from-an-unknown-chinese-mother-by-xinran.html?_r=1

FILICIDE: Japan: Yui Tanaka Kills Child For Throwing Away Game Console

Brian Ashcraft on April 1, 2011
On the night of March 30, little Shizuku Tanaka was murdered in Osaka. Her feet and hands were bound by tape, and she was stuffed in a garbage bag. The bag was tied shut, and the three-year-old is now dead.
Her mother, 26-year-old Yui Tanaka, later told investigators, “Shizuku was being fussy and noisy while we were gaming.” According to the Nikkei, Tanaka also said that the little girl threw their game machine and other important possessions into the garbage. “Even when we scolded her, she didn’t listen,” said Tanaka, “so we put her in a bag.”
The mother didn’t act alone. Along with her 20-year-old boyfriend, Tanaka taped her daughter’s hands and feet and stuck her in a plastic bag. The autopsy report says the little girl died of suffocation.
Tanaka and her live-in boyfriend are now in police custody, saying that they didn’t intend to kill Shizuku. They apparently met last year via a dating site and began living together this past February.
Reports are also surfacing that paint Tanaka as a “demon mother”. Last year, Tanaka apparently wrote online, “Even if this kid died, I wouldn’t cry.”
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2011/04/mother-kills-child-for-throwing-away-game-console/

FILICIDE: England: Satpal Kaur-Singh killed autistic son

1 April 2011

A mother has been jailed for killing her 12-year-old autistic son by making him drink bleach.

Ajit Singh-Mahal was found dead at the family home in Barking, east London, in February.

Satpal Kaur-Singh, 44, pleaded guilty to manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility. She had denied the boy's murder.

Kaur-Singh, who also drank bleach on the day of the killing, was jailed for seven years at the Old Bailey.

Judge Peter Beaumont, the Recorder of London, told her: "I recognise how difficult Ajit was to care for."Your deteriorating mental health robbed you of proper insight into what was going wrong and erected real obstacles between you and people and the agencies that were trying so hard to help you."

He continued: "You faced the prospect of Ajit being taken away from you, but you killed him.

"You were, in my judgment, making a statement, without any consideration of his interests."

Richard Whittam QC, prosecuting, said: "This is a case of great tragedy." Ajit "was dependant on his mother for all his needs", could not speak so had trouble communicating, and had difficulty getting around outdoors.

The child was killed with Domestos just hours after Kaur-Singh refused to co-operate with council staff at a meeting over his care.

Burn marks

When paramedics found him he was lying on a sofa, not breathing, with no pulse. He had corrosive burn marks around his mouth, chin and neck. Singh was treated with charcoal and milk for the bleach she had drunk. She told a paramedic she had been thinking about "doing this" for years.

Social workers at Barking and Dagenham Council had concerns about Manchester-born Singh in the months before she killed her son, the court heard. She was said to have appeared calm in the meeting with council staff. But hours later she rang 999 to say: "I've just murdered my son and I've tried to kill myself."

A council spokeswoman said: "Barking and Dagenham Council's thoughts, first and foremost, continue to be with the Singh family. "The council contributed to an independent serious case review to look into all details of this case and to address lessons arising.

"Barking and Dagenham safeguarding children board will publish the findings of that independent review in due course."

David Hislop QC, defending, said: "This was a woman who loved her son too much. The belief she held, because of her mental disorder, was that hers was an act of mercy."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-12933888

INFANTICIDE: France: Sergine and Joel Le Moaligou face trial after death of baby fed only on breast milk

29 March 2011

Court hears parents became vegan after watching documentary about abattoirs and refused to eat any animal products

Two strict vegans have gone on trial in France charged with "neglect or food deprivation" after the death of their breastfed 11-month-old daughter who was found to be suffering from vitamin deficiency.

Sergine and Joel Le Moaligou called an ambulance to their home in the village of Saint-Maulvis – 90 miles north of Paris – in March 2008 after their daughter Louise became listless. By the time paramedics arrived, the baby had died.
The police were alerted after the ambulance crew noticed the baby was pale and thin and a doctor refused to issue a death certificate. A postmortem showed the child, who had been fed only on her 37-year-old mother's milk, weighed 5.7kg when she should have been about 8kg.
She was also suffering from deficiency of vitamins A and B12, which may have left her susceptible to infection. She died of a pneumonia-related illness.
Medical experts told the court in Amiens that the vitamin deficiency could have been caused by an unbalanced diet. While anxious not to call into question the couple's lifestyle, Anne-Laure Sandretto, the deputy prosecutor, admitted: "The problem with a vitamin B12 deficiency could be linked to the mother's eating habits."
The parents, who also have a 13-year-old daughter who was not found to be suffering from any deficiencies, said they became vegan after seeing a TV programme about "how animals were taken to abattoirs", said the mother's lawyer, Stephane Daquo.

At the time of their daughter's death, they were running an organic food business and refused to eat any animal products. Daquo said they had a mistrust of traditional medicine and preferred to treat their children's complaints with advice from books.

"The couple did not follow the doctor's advice to take the baby to hospital when they went for her nine-month checkup and found she was suffering from bronchitis and was losing weight," he said. Instead they treated her with cabbage poultices, mustard and camphor and washed her with earth and clay instead of giving her baths, the court heard.
Daquo said the couple had been reading "the wrong things at the wrong moment". "They preferred to use recipes [treatment] based on clay or cabbage poultices that they got from their books," he said.
Patrick Quenel, lawyer for the father, whose business has gone into liquidation, said the couple were "completely aware of the mistakes they made".
They have been charged with "neglect or food deprivation followed by death" and face a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison if convicted. The hearing is expected to last until Friday.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/29/vegans-trial-death-baby-breast-milk

INFANTICIDE: Colorado: Estella Toleafoa charged with first-degree murder in baby's scalding death

March 21, 2011 : JOHN C. ENSSLIN

Prosecutors filed a first-degree murder charge Monday against a Colorado Springs mother suspected of leaving her 9-month-old alone at home in a bathtub in which he drowned in scalding hot water.
During a brief court appearance, Estella Toleafoa, 23, also was charged with child abuse resulting in the death of her son Erich Tyler Jr. and with child abuse of her 2-year-old son Jamari Toleafoa.
According to an arrest affidavit, Toleafoa told police she left Erich and Jamari naked in the tub with about an inch of water in it while she went out to buy milk at a nearby convenience store.
Instead, she went across the street to a liquor store to buy cigarettes and to a restaurant to buy chicken wings, police said.
The dead child's father is a Fort Carson soldier who was serving in Afghanistan at the time of the March 8 incident.
The murder charge alleges that Toleafoa "knowingly" caused her child's death. If convicted of first-degree murder, she would face a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole. The child abuse resulting in death charge carries a sentence range of 16 to 48 years in prison.
On March 9, Colorado Springs police arrested her on suspicion of felony child abuse.
Deputy District Attorney Amy Fitch would not comment on why prosecutors decided to file the more serious murder charge.
David Webster, a former prosecutor turned private attorney with no connection to the case, said in general it is considerably harder to prove first-degree murder than child abuse resulting in death.
The murder charge requires that prosecutors show beyond a reasonable doubt that the mother knowingly put her child in a situation that would result in his death, Webster said.
Child abuse resulting in death requires prosecutors to prove that the mother unreasonably placed the child in a situation where death or injury could occur.
“That’s a pretty significant difference.” said Webster, who served for 10 years as a deputy district attorney in Trinidad and El Paso County. “They’re going to have to prove that she knew that when she went out. But that’s ripe for argument by a defense attorney.”
Toleafoa is being held on a $150,000 bond. Fitch said prosecutors will seek to revoke that bond now that the top charge has been upgraded to murder.
Toleafoa's surviving son has been placed with a foster family.
A date for a preliminary hearing will be set later this week.
The charges come at a time when the El Paso County Human Services Department continues to log record numbers of hotline calls of suspected child abuse.
According the county’s most recent report, in 2010 there were 12,604 calls in which people questioned someone’s parenting skills or called out of concern for the welfare of a child.
That figure was 13 percent higher than the previous record-setting year of 2009. It also marked the third year in a row in which El Paso fielded more child abuse referrals than any other county in the state. Last year, El Paso had 3,552 more calls than Denver.

http://www.gazette.com/articles/degree-114897-news-drowned.html#ixzz1HnuA8oeF

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

INFANTICIDE: The Canadian argument that the infanticide law no longer serves its original intent

James Morton, March 21, 2011

James Morton is a Toronto lawyer (presently on circuit in Baker Lake, Nunavut) who teaches at Osgoode Hall Law School of York University.
He is a past president of the Ontario Bar Association. The views herein are solely his own (jmortonmusings.blogspot.com).

L.B. killed two of her children by smothering them shortly after they were born. L.B. was 17 years old at the time she killed her first baby but was an adult at the time of the second killing.

In both cases the killings came to light only after L.B. confessed while she was a patient in a psychiatric facility -the two deaths had been thought accidental. In both cases, L.B. smothered the children shortly after birth and while she suffered from significant mental illness arising, at least in part, from the consequences of childbirth.
L.B. gave a detailed statement to the police admitting that she killed her children. She explained she was "really confused" and "fighting with her thoughts." L.B. insisted that she did not want to hurt her children, but wanted to help them.
L.B. was charged with two counts of first-degree murder. At her trial the judge found L.B.'s thinking suffered a "disturbance" as a result of giving birth. Nevertheless, the court found she did have the mental capacity to understand what she was doing and concluded that L.B. intended to kill her children.
In the end, the judge found that L.B. was guilty of infanticide and not guilty of murder. She was given a sentence of 18 months on top of time served in jail, and probation. The sentence was far less severe than it would have been for murder.
In Canada the killing of a human being is always called homicide. Homicide is divided into two categories -culpable and non-culpable. In almost all cases culpable homicide is murder (where the accused intended to kill or was reckless as to killing) or manslaughter (where the accused didn't intend to kill but did so where there was a clear risk of bodily harm).
In some very rare cases, as with L.B.'s case, there is a third form of culpable homicide -infanticide.
Infanticide entered the law in the United Kingdom (and to Canada) in the 1920s because juries refused to find mothers who killed their newborn children guilty of murder. The penalty for murder was hanging and juries, faced with a mother who had obviously killed her child, refused to convict for murder and acquitted or found against the mother for lesser offences such as concealing a pregnancy.
Infanticide was not brought into law to show clemency to the weakness of mothers but rather as a way to ensure that mothers would be convicted of something in spite of the inclination of juries to acquit.
This last point is significant. The Crown appealed the trial decision in L.B.'s case and said that she should have been convicted of murder, saying that infanticide is just a special case of murder. The Crown said infanticide "rests on discredited medical opinions and assumptions about the plight of young unwed mothers that do not accord with present reality, and constitutes an unacceptable devaluation of the worth of a newborn child."
In fact, far from devaluing the worth of a newborn child, the offence of infanticide was created to ensure there would be some punishment for the killing of a baby.
The rarity of facts justifying charges of infanticide led to real doubt as to what relationship the offence had to other offences such as murder -is infanticide merely a specific example of murder, as the Crown argued in L.B.'s case, or is infanticide a separate offence which offered a defence to a charge of murder? This was the main issue before the Court of Appeal for Ontario.
If the mother can raise infanticide as a partial defence to murder she is liable to a maximum penalty of five years. However, if infanticide is merely a special case of murder, when a mother is convicted of murder she must be sentenced to life imprisonment. The distinction is far from trivial.
The Court of Appeal made its decision largely on statutory interpretation. The Criminal Code provides "culpable homicide is murder or manslaughter or infanticide." That suggests that murder and infanticide are mutually exclusive. Certainly the dramatically different penalties for the offences are consistent with the offences being mutually exclusive -it makes little sense for an accused to be facing either a maximum penalty of five years or a minimum penalty of life imprisonment for the same act depending only on what particular form of charge the Crown employs.
Based on these considerations the Court of Appeal held where infanticide is made out, a conviction for murder is not available and the maximum sentence is five years in jail. Put otherwise, infanticide is a defence to a charge of murder.
The Court of Appeal's decision, while legally sound, leads to an odd policy result. Infanticide was intended to ensure stiffer punishment for the killing of newborn children. The effect of the Court of Appeal's decision that infanticide is a defence is to lessen the penalty that would otherwise follow for murder. The effect has been to make the law on infanticide the reverse of what Parliament intended; rather than increase, it decreases, punishment.
A "law and order" initiative from the 1920s has an unexpected consequence today.
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Infanticide+longer+serves+original+intent/4475372/story.html#ixzz1Hnmh79Xv

INFANTICIDE: Maggie Jean Wortman accused of killing infant son with methamphetamine-laced breast milk

Thadeus Greenson/: 03/21/2011

A 26-year-old Loleta mother facing allegations that she killed her 6-week-old son by feeding him methamphetamine-laced breast milk tested positive for the drug during pregnancy, according to court documents in the case.
Maggie Jean Wortman has pleaded not guilty to charges of involuntary manslaughter and felony child endangerment and is scheduled to appear in Humboldt County Superior Court today for a hearing to set future court dates in the case.
Humboldt County Sheriff's Office detectives arrested Wortman after a two-month investigation into the death of her son, Michael Phillip Acosta III, who was transported to a local hospital because he was not breathing on Nov. 2. He was pronounced dead later that day.
Court documents, as well as interviews with people familiar with Wortman and her family, shed new light on the case.
According to an affidavit for an arrest warrant recently included in Wortman's case file, Dr. Neil Kushner determined her son's cause of death to be “methamphetamine toxicity.” The document also states that a hair follicle sample taken from Wortman's now 23-month-old daughter tested positive for methamphetamine as well, prompting Child Welfare Services to take her into protective custody.
The document, written by Sheriff's Office Detective Kyla Smith, also states that Wortman received pre-natal care while pregnant with Michael and tested positive for methamphetamine use when six months pregnant.
In interviews with law enforcement, Smith wrote, Wortman admitted to smoking methamphetamine during pregnancy and doing so approximately three times after giving birth. The affidavit also states that Wortman exclusively fed Michael through nursing.
Smith said she reviewed information and pamphlets routinely given to pregnant mothers at the place Wortman went for prenatal treatment.
”There was a lot of information about drugs and how it affects you and your child, be it born or unborn,” Smith said.
Some people familiar with Wortman and her family told the Times-Standard they repeatedly witnessed Wortman smoking methamphetamine around her children. They requested anonymity talking about the case due to its sensitive nature.
Wortman smoked methamphetamine almost daily, the people claim, adding that they personally witnessed her smoking methamphetamine while holding Michael. Wortman was on drug probation at the time, according to court records.
One of the sources said they were aware of calls made to Child Welfare Services to report concerns over the safety of Wortman's two children.
”The system failed the children and the system failed her,” one source said.
Jeri Scardina, deputy branch director for the Department of Health and Human Services Children and Family Services, said she couldn't comment about specific cases. However, Scardina said her department is mandated to take reports 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
When a call comes in with a report, Scardina said, it is evaluated to see whether it requires an in-person response and, if so, whether that needs to be done within 24 hours or within 10 days. During the in-person response, Scardina said, staff will interview or inspect the child and possibly the parents and make a determination of whether there is an immediate safety threat to the child or an ongoing risk.
Kathryn Wells, the medical director at Denver Family Crisis Center and author of a paper on methamphetamine and pregnancy, said cases like Wortman's touch on areas where there is really a dearth of scientific research. No study has conclusively determined what toxic methamphetamine levels are in children. Additionally, only limited research is available on what levels of the drug can be passed through breast milk, Wells said.
Because they claim methamphetamine smoke was so prevalent in the small trailer in which Wortman lived with her kids, those familiar with the family questioned in interviews with the Times-Standard whether secondhand smoke from the drug alone may have been enough to kill Michael and result in a positive test for Wortman's daughter.
On the night of Michael's death, the sources said, about a half dozen people were in the trailer smoking methamphetamine for a long period of time.
Wells said the subject of secondhand toxicity is still being studied.
”To my knowledge, I don't think we have any data that says secondhand exposure is enough to kill a kid,” Wells said, speaking generally and not about Wortman's case. “I think most of us believe that just breathing in secondhand smoke is not enough to ping a positive test.”
Methamphetamine also metabolizes out of the body within 48 to 72 hours of ingestion, Wells said, making it unlikely it could build up in someone's body over time.
Cases like Wortman's are relatively rare, and prosecutors may find a challenging road ahead. Similar cases have been filed, however.
In Riverside County in 2002, Amy Leanne Prien faced a murder charge after her 3-month-old son was found to have died of acute methamphetamine intoxication. After multiple trials, Prien pleaded guilty in 2006 to a charge of involuntary manslaughter, which, coupled with a conviction on a felony child endangerment charge, left Prien with a 14-year prison sentence.
In February, a Wyoming mother, Crystal Ann Cardenas, was arrested and charged with negligent homicide and child endangerment with methamphetamine after her 2-month-old son stopped breathing and later died.
Smith said she has been in touch with officials in Los Angeles County who helped her work Wortman's case.
Court records also indicate that Wortman has previously faced criminal charges relating to her care of children.
In February 2010, Wortman was charged with battery, causing or permitting cruelty to a child and committing an immoral act before a child stemming from an incident when she allegedly attacked her husband, Michael Acosta. According to the court documents, Wortman was holding an infant child while repeatedly hitting Acosta in the neck. Responding officers reported finding a “clear glass tube pipe” on the kitchen table of Wortman's residence, according to the court documents.
In May, Wortman pleaded guilty to battery, and the other charges facing her were dismissed. She was ordered to enter a 52-week domestic violence counseling program and given three years probation, according to the documents.
Those interviewed by the Times-Standard who knew Wortman and her family said they suffer great guilt that they didn't try to do more to protect Wortman's children and to have them removed from her care.
“That baby was so beautiful and so alive, and it just meant nothing,” one said.
http://www.contracostatimes.com/california/ci_17663094?nclick_check=1

FILICIDE: Manitoba: Nicole Redhead

Jaylene Sanderson-Redhead died June 29, 2009. Doctors said they found signs she had suffered long-term abuse.

A woman who, as a child, witnessed her mother kill her father is now preparing to go to prison for killing her young daughter.
The chilling tale of multi-generational family violence is playing out in a Winnipeg courtroom, and is likely to raise more questions about Manitoba's child welfare system.
Nicole Redhead, now 29, had worked as a prostitute and was addicted to crack cocaine.
In 2009, she regained custody of her toddler from CFS as she entered an aboriginal women's shelter that offers parenting courses and other supports.
But she became violent with the young girl, and one night in June, she held her hand over the girl's mouth until she stopped breathing, court was told.
She then placed the child back in her crib and put a blanket over her. She did not tell anyone about what happened except her boyfriend — via telephone, because he was in jail. The boyfriend called the shelter and told them what happened.

'Gratuitous violence'

Autopsies would later reveal dozens of bruises on the girl's body and bites on her legs. Some bruises were old, some were still forming when she died.
It was "gratuitous violence", according to Crown attorney Colleen McDuff, who asked the court Monday for a 12-year sentence.
"There is a degree of anger, malevolence, that is difficult to explain," McDuff said.
Redhead pleaded guilty last year to manslaughter but has failed to show any remorse, McDuff said.
The woman addressed the court briefly Monday. She did not apologize for the death, but instead criticized the support services offered at the shelter.
"Every time I did ask the staff for help, there was no one there to help me," Redhead said in a soft voice.
Defence lawyer Steven Brennan said the woman is unable to show remorse because she suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder after a horrific childhood and a series of abusive adult relationships.
At the age of nine, she saw her mother kill her father, Brennan said.
"She remembers seeing a lot of blood," he told the court.
She was put into foster care and was sexually abused at age 11, he said. Later, she turned to prostitution to make money and became addicted to alcohol and crack cocaine. The trauma has left her unable to show emotion, Brennan said, even when she feels deeply remorseful.
"This is a horrible background. Simply horrific circumstances," he said.

Defence asks for six years
Brennan asked for a sentence of five to six years, minus double credit for the time she has spent in custody since her arrest.
Chief Justice Glenn Joyal of Court of Queen's Bench has reserved decision on her sentence until mid-April.
He frequently challenged the defence's assertion that the woman deserved sympathy, and pointed to evidence that showed the woman did not participate in support programs at the shelter.
"She suffered more than most human beings should ever have to contemplate ... but at a certain point, she was given advantages," Joyal said.
"She declined the very support offered to her."
Joyal also pointed to Child and Family Services' decision to give the woman back her child "at a time when she probably ought not to have had any child near her."
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/story/2011/03/21/man-cp-redhead-sentencing.html

FILICIDE: Texas: Vikki Maccias son died from blunt force head trauma

Matt Rivers - Multimedia Journalist

March 22, 2011

EL PASO- Vikki Macias is sitting in county jail behind tonight, accused of murdering Dallas Ryan Macias, her four-year-old son.  Tonight, her lawyer and her brother spoke to us about the case.

"It's hard.  It's like losing two family members," says Vince Barreda, Vikki's brother and Dallas' uncle.  "I'm in shock you know about it.  It's not something that's easy to take.  It's very hard to put into words how one's supposed to feel about that."
It's a situation no family should ever have to go through.  26 year-old Vikki Macias turned herself in to police yesterday, who arrested her on capital murder charges.
According to the indictment, Dallas died of blunt force trauma to the head, a blow struck, police say, by Vikki Macias.
"In situations like this someone has to be held responsible, and as of right now, unfortunately, that's my sister," Barreda said.
Dallas hit his head in his bedroom at the Macias family home, on March 12.  But exactly what happened that day is a point of contention, with some arguing that the death was just a tragic accident.
Justin underwood is Vikki Macias' attorney.  He says his client was nowhere near her little boy when he hit his head, merely guilty of not being there when it happened.
"Dallas was playing in his room one moment, she went off down the hall, and she heard something that sounded awful, she went back in there, and he was unconscious on the floor," the lawyer said.
The arrest affidavit shows a history of abuse, and says there is evidence to prove it.  The medical examiner found the boy had a fractured left leg.
It was partially healed but never treated, something they call a tell-tale sign of abuse.  That, in combination with unreleased witness statements, were enough for police to make an arrest.
Barreda told us he didn't want to comment on his sister's possible guilt or innocence.  He only wants justice served, and the truth to come out.
He also told us Dallas's father is currently in jail.  We called CPS this afternoon, and they say there is no prior history with Child Protective Services.
http://www.ktsm.com/news/mothers-lawyer-she-didnt-kill-her-son

FILICIDE: Indiana: Latisha Lawson and room-mate Natasha Hawkins charged for murder

 23 Mar 2011, Drew Blair

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) - A second woman has been formally charged in the killing of a three-year-old boy.
Natasha Hawkins, 31, is accused of participating in the death of her roommate’s son in November 2009. Jezaih King’s body had been stored in a plastic tote until discovered by authorities in December 2010.
The toddler’s mother, 31-year-old Latisha Lawson has been charged with his murder.
Lawson admitted to police she forced a mixture of olive oil and vinegar down her children’s throats because she thought they were demon possessed. Hawkins suggested the use of oil as a form of exorcism, according to court documents.
Lawson’s 10-year-old daughter vomited when given the mixture. Her son was given the oil and vinegar three times. Hawkins admitted to police that she held the toddler’s legs to keep him from kicking during the feeding. On the third time, Lawson told detectives she held Jezaih’s mouth shut for about 10 minutes until he stopped breathing.
Preliminary cause of death was listed as asphyxia due to compression of the neck.
Hawkins along with her three children, Lawson and her daughter were all present when the boy stopped breathing, court documents indicate. Hawkins told police that she would burn a candle in the residence to mask the smell of the body.
The Allen County Prosecutor’s office filed seven felony charges against Hawkins on Monday. The charges relate to aiding in battery causing death. Other charges of neglect and battery resulting in bodily injury relate to Hawkins’ treatment of her own children.
A trial date for Hawkins will be set at a hearing on April 6.

FILICIDE: Ontario: Starved to death by grandparents Elva Bottineau and Norman Kidman

March 25 2011An inquest will be held into the death of a five-year-old boy who died of starvation in his grandparents’ Toronto home.
Ontario Chief Coroner Dr. Andrew McCallum says an inquest can be held now that all court proceedings in Jeffrey Baldwin’s death have been completed.
McCallum says the inquest jury will hear evidence regarding the circumstances of the boy’s death on Nov. 30, 2002.
McCallum says the date, location and presiding coroner will be announced at a later date.
Jeffrey weighed only 21 pounds and was covered in sores when he died from complications due to chronic starvation.
Elva Bottineau and Norman Kidman were convicted of second-degree murder in Jeffrey’s death and their appeal was rejected earlier this month.
Bottineau and Kidman were convicted in 2006 and sentenced to life in prison with no parole for 22 and 20 years, respectively.
Kidman and Bottineau were designated as legal guardians for Jeffrey and his sister, who had suffered abuse at the hands of their birth parents.
Bottineau and Kidman used the children as a source of income, collecting government support cheques in their names while they confined them to a dark, unheated room that reeked of urine and feces.
Bottineau’s lawyer James Stribopoulos had argued his client’s conviction should be overturned because the trial judge “swept away evidence of Bottineau’s highly incapacitated mental state.”
Justice David Doherty, one of the three judges who heard the appeal, said the trial judge had taken Bottineau’s IQ of 69 — borderline mental retardation — into account when sentencing her to life in prison.
“He finds that she’s of limited intellect, but she’s also a lying, manipulative person,” Doherty said in rejecting the appeal.
The judges also dismissed arguments that Kidman played no part in Jeffrey’s abuse.
“He’s there every day, his room is next to the dungeon that these kids were being tortured in,” Doherty said. “There’s all kinds of evidence that he knocked this kid around.”
Although Jeffrey and his sister lived in squalor, the rest of the house was normal, including the living quarters of other children in the home.
Richard Litkowski, the lawyer for Kidman, had asked court to quash Kidman’s murder conviction and instead send him to prison for manslaughter.
http://www.thestar.com/news/article/962145--inquest-called-into-starvation-death-of-jeffrey-baldwin

INFANTICIDE: England

Bob Mitchell : Mar 24 2011

Police in London are awaiting post-mortem results on a dead newborn found in a hotel room where it is believed a teen from Barrie gave birth during a school trip. “At this point we really don’t know what we’re dealing with,” said Simon Fisher, spokesman for the Metropolitan London Police force. “We’re not sure if we’re dealing with a homicide. The post-mortem will determine the cause of death and where we go from there.” The post-mortem examination was scheduled to take place Friday. Barrie police tracked down the 15-year-old who they believe gave birth in a hotel on Lampton Rd. in the suburb of Hounslow near Heathrow Airport. Hotel staff discovered the full-term dead baby about 12:45 p.m. on March 19. Fisher said the baby showed no obvious signs of trauma. “The baby was pronounced dead at the scene,” he said. Fisher didn’t know where the dead baby was found in the hotel room or if it had been concealed. Police in England quickly determined the room had been occupied by high school students on a class trip from Barrie but they had already left the hotel earlier and were on their way back to Canada. Barrie police were contacted by Interpol the day after the baby’s body was found and asked to assist London investigators in locating the Canadian teenager. After Barrie police found the 15-year-old, they took her to Royal Victoria Hospital where she was examined and released. Police in England could seek extradition if the case turns out to be a homicide. http://www.thestar.com/news/article/960445--barrie-teen-linked-to-dead-baby-in-london-hotel

FETICIDE (from Wikipedia)

Feticide or foeticide is an act that causes the death of a fetus. In a legal context, "fetal homicide" or "child destruction" refers to the deliberate or incidental killing of a fetus due to a criminal human act, such as a blow to the abdomen of a pregnant woman. As a medical term, feticide is destruction of a fetus, for example as the first phase of a legal induced abortion. Feticide does not refer to the death of a fetus from entirely natural causes, such as the miscarriage of a pregnancy.

Fetal homicide

Laws in the United States

Fetal homicide laws in the United States

  "Homicide" or "murder".

  Other crime against fetus.

  Depends on age of fetus.

  Assaulting woman.

In the U.S., most crimes of violence are covered by state law, not federal law. Thirty-five (35) states currently recognize the "unborn child" (the term usually used) or fetus as a homicide victim, and 25 of those states apply this principle throughout the period of pre-natal development. These laws do not apply to legal induced abortions. Federal and state courts have consistently held that these laws do not contradict the U.S. Supreme Court's rulings on abortion.
In 2004, Congress enacted and President Bush signed the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which recognizes the "child in utero" as a legal victim if he or she is injured or killed during the commission of any of 68 existing federal crimes of violence. These crimes include some acts that are federal crimes no matter where they occur (e.g., certain acts of terrorism), crimes in federal jurisdictions, crimes within the military system, crimes involving certain federal officials, and other special cases. The law defines "child in utero" as "a member of the species homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb."
Of the 35 states that recognize fetal homicide, 25 apply the principle throughout the period of pre-natal development, while 10 establish protection at some later stage, which varies from state to state. For example, California treats the killing of a fetus as homicide, but does not treat the killing of an embryo (prior to approximately eight weeks) as homicide, by construction of the California Supreme Court. Some other states do not consider the killing of a fetus to be homicide until the fetus has reached quickening or viability.
Unlawful abortion may be considered "feticide", even if the pregnant woman consents to the abortion.

Child destruction
In English law, "child destruction" is the crime of killing a child "capable of being born alive", before it has "a separate existence".The Crimes Act 1958 defined "capable of being born alive" as 28 weeks' gestation, later reduced to 24 weeks. The 1990 Amendment to the Abortion Act 1967 means a medical practitioner cannot be guilty of the crime. The charge of child destruction is rare. A woman who had an unsafe abortion while 7½ months pregnant was given a suspended sentence of 12 months in 2007; the Crown Prosecution Service was unaware of any similar conviction.

Use during legal abortion

In abortions after 20 weeks, an injection of digoxin or potassium chloride to stop the fetal heart can be used to achieve feticide. Less commonly, urea may be injected into the amniotic sac, or the umbilical cord may be cut, resulting in the fetus bleeding to death. Fetal death causes the tissues to soften, making removal of fetal parts in a dilation and evacuation procedure easier. In the United States, the Supreme Court has ruled that a legal ban on intact dilation and extraction procedures does not apply if feticide is completed before surgery starts. When used before labor induction, feticide prevents the possible complication of live birth. The possibility of unsuccessful feticide—resulting in birth of a live infant—is a malpractice concern.
The most common method of selective reduction—a procedure to reduce the number of fetuses in a multifetus pregnancy—is feticide via a chemical injection into the selected fetus or fetuses. The reduction procedure is usually performed during the first trimester of pregnancy. It often follows detection of a congenital defect in the selected fetus or fetuses, but can also reduce the risks of carrying more than three fetuses to term.

FILICIDE: Mississippi: Terrie Robinson, child found in oven

A mother is accused of murdering her three-year-old son whose charred body was found in her oven.
Terrie A. Robinson, 24, from Mississippi, was arrested yesterday after police found her son Tristan's burned body inside the electric oven at her apartment.
Washington County Coroner Methel Johnson said the child had been burned in the oven, but an autopsy was ordered to determine whether he died before or after being put there.
The child's body was still warm when it was removed from the appliance.
Mr Johnson said of the incident: 'This is a really sad moment for me. I've seen a lot of things, but this is one that will stick in my memory for a long, long time.'
There appeared to be some trauma to the three-year-old's  head and it was possible that could have happened before he was placed in the oven.
Officers found the body after responding to an emergency call, but no details were released at this time.
 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1362560/Terrie-A-Robinson-arrested-burned-body-son-3-oven.html#ixzz1H4VEcfip

INFANTICIDE: VIRGINIA: Cecelia Burnette charged second degree murder

The murder trial of a Bedford mother gets underway in Bedford.

Cecelia Burnette is charged with 2nd degree murder and felony child abuse by a parent for the 2008 death of 8-month-old Marissa Burnette.

In the Commonwealth's opening statement, a prosecutor said the injuries that killed Marissa Burnette were as violent as those from a car accident or from falling from a multi-story building.

The prosecution stated in September 2008, Cecelia Burnette took her baby to the doctor.  The prosecution claims Cecelia left her baby with Josh Cheek, while Cecelia went to pick up a prescription.  Cheek was Celelia Burnette's boyfriend at the time.

The prosecution told the jury Cheek saw the baby's eyes roll back in her head and the baby began to shake violently.  The prosecutor stated Cheek called  Cecelia, who told him he was overreacting.  The prosecution stated it took Cecelia Burnette 45 minutes to get home.

The baby was taken to Bedford Memorial Hospital and transported to Roanoke Memorial, where the prosecution says a doctor suspected the baby had head trauma.

The prosecution says Cecelia Burnette gave both doctors and police conflicting statements about who was taking care of the baby and what may have caused the injuries.  The prosecutor also stated Cecelia called a Child Protective Services worker to make sure the worker wasn't going to stop by the home.

 http://www2.wsls.com/news/2011/mar/15/8/mother-trial-babys-murder-bedford-ar-907093/

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."

Advertisement

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: Massachusetts: Dora Tejada Accused of Killing Daughter during Exorcism

Jupiter

Dora Tejada, 26-year-old mother said she had to kill her 3-year-old daughter during an exorcism.
According to reports, she shoved her fist into her daughter's mouth, believing it would exorcise the "devil" out of the toddler.

The Salvadorian woman told authorities that she has the ability to see dead people and God speaks to her directly calling it "a gift from God." , relatives reported that her behavior was making them uncomfortable.

Shocking to believe that a mother could kill her own child because God order her to do so.

The child's death is the first homicide to occur on the island of Nantucket in two years, the Boston Globe reported.