FILICIDE: with suicide discussed

April 19, 2011 MICHEL MARTIN

Last week, Lashanda Armstrong drove a car with her four children into the Hudson River. Her 10-year-old son Lashaun escaped the sinking car �" but three of her kids did not. In this week's Moms conversation, host Michel Martin speaks with noted forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Phillip Resnick about why parents kill their children and what community members can do if they observe volatile behavior from a parent. Martin is also joined by Tell Me More's regular parenting contributors, Leslie Morgan Steiner and Dani Tucker. This subject may not be appropriate for all listeners.

I'm Michel Martin and this is TELL ME MORE from NPR News.
Coming up, we continue our series for National Poetry Month. TELL ME MORE is celebrating the art of poetry throughout April and we are sharing your tweet poetry on the air. That's coming up and I really think you'll want to hear this one.
But, first, they say it takes a village to raise a child, but maybe you just need a few moms in your corner. Every week we check in with a diverse group of parents for their common sense and savvy parenting advice. Today we are talking about a topic that is so painful that we actually debated long and hard about whether to have this conversation. And this is an adult conversation, so I do want to add, it might not be appropriate for all listeners.
We want to talk about that terrible story out of New York last week. Last Tuesday, 25-year-old Lashanda Armstrong drove a van containing her four children into the Hudson River near New York City. Her 10-year-old son, Lashaun, was the only survivor. He climbed through a window in the vehicle, swam ashore and was discovered by a stranger. The boy told authorities that his mother had warned them, quote, "I'm sorry. I'm going to do something crazy." Here is the voice of the woman who found the boy and brought him to safety.
Unidentified Woman: By the time it was my turn to go to the dockside I saw him going like this, help me, help me, help me. He said, Mom just drove the car into the water. And he was terrified. He blamed himself, not getting his baby sister out because the buckle was too tight. And he was just literally blaming himself for everything - everything that went on and that he didn't get help fast enough.
MARTIN: Police later found the bodies of his mother and three younger siblings offshore.
We wanted to talk more about why a parent would do this and what people can do if they suspect that someone, a family member, a neighbor may be on the verge of this kind of act and how to respond after it happens. And to do that, we've called upon Dr. Phillip Resnick, who has studied this phenomenon for 45 years. He's a professor of psychiatry and director of forensic psychiatry at Case Western University.
He joins us now from NPR member station WCPN in Cleveland, Ohio. Dr. Resnick, thanks so much for joining us.
Dr. PHILLIP RESNICK (Director of Forensic Psychiatry, Case Western University): Certainly.
MARTIN: And in our Washington, D.C. studios we're joined by our regular parenting segment contributors, Dani Tucker and Leslie Morgan Steiner. Ladies, thank you both so much for joining us once again.
Ms. DANI TUCKER: Thank you.
Ms. LESLIE MORGAN STEINER: Thank you.
MARTIN: I think I speak for many people when I say that I think the first thing that comes to somebody's mind after this, when they hear a story like this is why did she have to take the children with her? Is that something that you often hear from people who when they talk about a story like this?
Dr. RESNICK: Yes. It's quite common where people say, why didn't they just kill themself rather than wipe out the family? And I think the answer to that is, really, if it is what's called an altruistic killing, a mother feels that the world is a terrible place through her depressed eyes and often feels that her children go through the same suffering she does. She wants to protect them and believes that they'll all be better off in heaven. So it's what I call murder out of love, not murder out of hate.
MARTIN: You've identified five circumstances where parents kill their children. And we don't have time to go through all five. But this altruistic scenario that you just described where a parent thinks, well, you know, they can't survive without me. Is that the most common scenario in your view? And I also wanted to ask, is it different with men and women?
Dr. RESNICK: The main difference is that a depressed father or mother may kill their children. Fathers are more likely to commit familicide, that is, kill their wife, children, and themselves, whereas women very, very rarely will kill their husband. They'll just kill their children and themselves. That's because men tend to think of their wife and children with kind of proprietary ownership and women don't have that attitude toward their husbands.
MARTIN: Is there anything that anyone could have done to prevent this, Dr. Resnick? And I ask this question knowing that we do not know all the facts. I mean, we do - we are hearing through news reports that there was a triggering event, if the mother had heard that her partner, the father of the three of the children was having an outside relationship and apparently that sent her over the edge. But is there anything anybody can do if somebody's determined to do something like this, in your view?
Dr. RESNICK: The question really is when the intervention occurs. The one category other than altruistic is called spouse revenge - only four percent of killings by parents. And it's usually set off by either knowledge of infidelity or in child custody fights. And in that circumstance, there may be a desire to really get to the surviving spouse. Again, I don't know what happened in this particular case, but altruistic and spouse revenge would be two possible categories.
MARTIN: I did want to ask about mental illness, which for many people, it just seems like, obviously, who would do this who isn't mentally ill? And so the question I have, in your research over time, is there generally an underlying mental illness?
Dr. RESNICK: Not necessarily. In the altruistic type, there usually is. But in the spouse revenge, there may or may not be, and the child maltreatment - which is a fatal battered child, which is actually one of the most common - there is not mental illness. It's a killing in the overzealous application of discipline, where a person just loses control and throws a child against a wall or whatever, but there's not necessarily an underlying mental illness.
MARTIN: If you're just joining us, this is TELL ME MORE, from NPR News. We're talking about parents who take the lives of their own children. We've just been speaking with Dr. Phillip Resnick. He a professor of psychiatry and the director of Forensic Psychiatry at Case Western University in Cleveland, and he studied this phenomenon for many, many years. I also want to mention that he testified in the Andrea Yates case, who's a woman who drowned her five children because she thought that they were possessed by demons.
Also with us, our regular Moms Leslie Morgan Steiner and Dani Tucker.
I wanted to ask each of you: Do you think that there is some value in talking about this publicly? And the reason I ask is that it just goes against everything we think of as what parents are and they're about. And some people feel that further talking about it just stigmatizes these people further. So is there any value to that? I wanted to ask each of you: Do you think there's any value in talking about this?
Ms. STEINER: This is Leslie, here. I think there's tremendous value, even though it's such a sad and incredibly painful subject to talk about. You know, my first reaction was shock and horror that any woman could do this. But then I have to tell you the truth, that almost immediately, I thought, you know what? I understand, and I've been there, too, even though it's a terrible thing to admit to.
I've never wanted to kill my children or myself, but I have had many moments as a mother where I really deeply regretted having children and I felt like the responsibility was more than I could possibly bear. If you talk about it and you try to sort of normalize these fleeting moments of despair, then maybe she wouldn't have felt so alone.
One of the biggest risk factors for mom who hurt their children is an incredible sense of isolation. And I think if when you're going through that, you know that a lot of other moms - a lot of other really good moms - have momentarily felt, you know, a crushing sense of despair. Perhaps you can hang on until it passes. And I'm sure that this would have passed for her, too, but she must not have known that it's actually kind of normal to feel such a terrible feeling.
MARTIN: In fact, the little boy told - he later told authorities that she said I've made a mistake. I'm making a mistake. And we don't know what she meant by that, but it does seem like this was an impulsive act.
Dani, what about you? Do you think that there is value in talking about this? Because I know that there's also the racial aspect of this. I mean, we should just tell it. I mean, that a lot of people I was noticing the comment boards and some of the news organizations have covered this story, and race did come into it. And people were saying, oh, what do you expect? It's young woman. She's got all these kids, different fathers and so forth. And I know that's painful in and of itself that people want to go there.
Ms. TUCKER: Yeah, that hurts really bad. I agree with Leslie. We should talk about it. We don't talk about it enough. I think that's why a lot of mothers don't get help. It brings, like, the Banita Jacks story. I don't know if a lot of people outside of D.C. were familiar, but the young lady killed her four daughters and stayed in the house with their decomposing bodies for months. And the police missed the mark. The family missed the mark. Yet she's sitting in jail, and there's no help there for her.
Because of that, to me, Lashanda Armstrong happened. And because of that, somebody else is coming in, because we're such a taboo and we refuse to look at this for what it is.
To me, in my opinion, I mean I'm no psychiatrist like the doctor, but I really believe that we have not gone deep enough into what's going on.
MARTIN: Do you feel that you've ever met someone who you felt was capable of this, was on the verge, as it were?
Ms. TUCKER: Oh, a couple of times. I mean, I'm like Leslie. I haven't been that far, but every mother, I believe, gets to the point where Leslie was talking about. You get so overwhelmed. And I don't care how much support you have, that mental health, a lot of us don't necessarily deal with that. You know, we have a problem dealing with our regular physical health, but we really don't always talk to somebody, join a support group.
And I've had couple of girlfriends who have called me stressed to the max. And in their case, yes, they did have multiple kids. Yes, they were dealing with more than one kid's father. But that's water under the bridge. They're here now, and you've got to keep them healthy. You can't keep taking them back because a lot of them were stuck in guilt(ph).
MARTIN: You said you've talk to some mothers who just were on the edge. What do you think was the thing that made them on the edge? Was it just feeling like they couldn't cope, they just had too many things?
Ms. TUCKER: Everything. Yeah. Feeling like you can't cope - again, when you're mental health is coming, in my opinion, and just listening to the two girlfriends I experienced this with, they always had issues coming in. You know, bills are due and kids are sick and no help coming. And in your mind, your mind's not healthy right now. You're stressed. You're tired, and you can't fight off those thoughts that say hurt your children, run away from your children, abandon your children. And that's what they were going through. When you get all of that coming together and you're in a room by yourself with just kids going mommy this mommy that, that's just too much.
MARTIN: Leslie, have you ever known anyone who you felt was on the edge?
Ms. STEINER: I have. I had a close friend, when her child was about two years old, she was getting divorced and she had just moved to a new community where she knew no one. I talked to her almost every day on the phone, and she was clearly not taking care of her child and not taking care of herself.
And she said things like: I just want to drive my car over the cliff with my son in the back. Neighbors called child protective services, and they did their job really well. The boy was taken out of her care and has been raised by his father. And it's a happy, happier ending for the boy because he got good care. But it's actually a good ending for her, too, because she needed a good two years after that to pull herself together.
And I know we hear a lot of negative things about Child Protective Services, but it is our society's best solution right now, because it is really hard for individuals to intervene. And I think it is really hard for moms to ask for help when they're so far gone, especially in our society that expects so much of mothers. And I don't care if you became a mom at 15 or 35, it's hard. And we don't say enough, how difficult the responsibility of caring for young children can be.
MARTIN: Dr. Resnick, I was doing some research here, and I found a story from the Associated Press that reports that these killings occur more often than we might like to believe - often as 100 times per year that a parent kills a child.
Dr. RESNICK: Yes. And actually...
MARTIN: Go ahead.
Dr. RESNICK: ...some studies I've seen are about 200 per year. In the study I did, it was one in every 33 murders in the United States was a parent killing a child. At least transient thoughts towards killing kids are so common, and that's one theory as to why we want to punish these mothers severely, is that it reinforces our own internal controls. And so often, there's a desire to make an example. And juries also punished severely, even when these women are mentally ill.
MARTIN: That's what happened in the case that Dani was just talking to us about, the Banita Jacks case. This was an important story in the Washington, D.C. area, probably didn't achieve a lot of national attention. And so I wanted to ask you this Dr. Resnick: Do you think that our response at this juncture is appropriate as a society? I mean, our criminal it tends to be a criminal justice response. I know in the case that you testified in, the Andrea Yates case, she was initially prosecuted. She - it seemed very clear that she was having a psychotic episode. I mean, she thought that demons had inhabited her children and that she had to kill them to save them. I'm not a doctor, either. But if that's not psychotic, I don't know what is.
Dr. RESNICK: No one argued everyone agreed she was psychotic. But, of course, the criteria for insanity involved not knowing the wrongfulness of the act, in Texas.
MARTIN: So the question I had for you is: What should our response be to these circumstances? And I understand that you're saying that there are a lot of different circumstances. But what do you think our response should be, as a society, and also as individuals, when we've encountered people in our lives who we think are struggling?
Dr. RESNICK: I think the critical issue, as far as prevention goes, is identifying depressed mothers. If a mother has small children and she takes her own life, there's one chance in 20 she'll take her children with her. So every depressed woman who's at risk of suicide is at some risk of taking the children. And so intervening, providing support, getting them to mental health professionals in that state is important. If someone is frankly psychotic, as some of these women are, that's pretty obvious that they need help. But severe depression is also a concern.
MARTIN: As we go forward - I just wanted to end with some sort of concluding thought, because I hate to the idea of sort of leaving people with this awful sense that we just have to continue to live with this, and this is all we get. So does anybody have any sort of concluding thoughts to help people kind of think through this? And Dr. Resnick, I'll give you the last word, here. Leslie?
Ms. STEINER: I remember about a dozen years ago when my first child was only two, he had a complete meltdown in public. It was one of these things where I felt like he was shaming me and humiliating me by screaming in public, and I came really close to slapping him. And I remember another mom, who was a complete stranger, came up to me. She didn't judge me. She smiled. She said, you know what? I have been there so many times myself. Can I take your son just for a minute? And she took him, I think, for two minutes, and that's all it took for me to get control of myself again.
So I think if you're going through this, know that you're not alone, and that it's going to pass. And if you see somebody who's going through it, try to reach out to them and let them know that you've been there, too, and don't judge them or pity them. But just try to help them.
MARTIN: Dani, what about you?
Ms. TUCKER: My final thought is to the moms: We live in a very judgmental society. So I know what it's like to be worried about what people will say or think or do. Don't let that stop you from taking care of your mental health. Just as you clean your house, think about your mind. Clean it. Keep it clear. Join groups. But take care of your mental health. Put it at the forefront, so that when you get stressed like Leslie and I were talking about, and you can't control it and you don't get to the levels where you might get to where Lashanda Armstrong did. Take care of it now.
MARTIN: Dr. Resnick, a final thought from you?
Dr. RESNICK: One of the problems is that women are very reluctant to share thoughts of killing their children, and the person they're least likely to share it with is a social worker, because of the public perception that children will be taken away. But they're also reluctant even to share it with their pediatrician or obstetrician. And if they do reach out, help is available, and they need to overcome the societal expectation that every mother's going to be a perfect mother who can handle all crises.
MARTIN: Dr. Phillip Resnick is a professor of psychiatry and director of forensic psychiatry at Case Western University. He was kind enough to join us from NPR member station WCPN in Cleveland.
And here in our Washington, D.C. studio are our regular Moms contributors: Leslie Morgan Steiner. Currently this book is a memoir, "Crazy Love." And Dani Tucker.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=135541557

INFANTICIDE: Illinois: Janet Thies-Keogh charged

Jason Meisner  April 14, 2011

A Lakeview mother who was reportedly suffering from severe postpartum depression has been charged with first-degree murder in the suffocation death of her 8-month-old son earlier this year.
Janet Thies-Keogh, 30, cried quietly in court while prosecutors detailed the Feb. 7 death of her son, Colin, in their condo in the 3900 block of North Ashland Avenue.
Prosecutors said Keogh’s husband left their home at about 6:30 p.m. to play tennis with friends. About an hour later, he called and asked Thies-Keogh how she was doing, and she replied, “Not good. You’d better come home.”
“She kept saying, ‘It’s too late. It’s too late,’” said Assistant State’s Attorney Jamie Santini.
While he rushed home, the woman’s husband called 911 and told dispatchers he thought his wife “may have done something to his baby or herself,” Santini said. In a second call to 911, the husband said "my wife just suffocated my baby," Santini said.
Police arrived and found Colin unresponsive on a bed in the master bedroom. He was pronounced dead a short time later at Thorek Memorial Hospital. An initial autopsy was inconclusive, but after further tests, the Cook County medical examiner’s office ruled earlier this week that the baby was suffocated in a homicide, court records show.
Thies-Keogh, who is originally from Des Plaines, was arrested Wednesday that suburb, according to police reports, which note she was “suicidal and taking medication for depression.”
Her attorney, Thomas Brandstrader, said Thies-Keogh was hospitalized for several weeks after the incident and has been under intensive psychiatric care since being released, apparently suffering from postpartum psychosis. She is a college graduate and had worked for a beer distributor until January, he said.
 “This is the saddest case I’ve ever seen,” Brandstrader said. “Her husband and family are devastated.”
Thies-Keogh has no criminal background, according to prosecutors. A spokesman for the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services said in February that the agency had no contact with the family before being called in to investigate the boy’s death.
Judge Israel Desierto set bond at $500,000.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chibrknews-cops-lakeview-woman-suffocated-8monthold-son-20110414,0,622189.story?track=rss

FILICIDE: Discussion of post-partum depression as cause

April 27, 2011 :  Thomas L. Hafemeister ( associate professor at the Law School, as well as the director of legal studies at the Institute of Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy.)


Increasing attention is being given to the occurrence of postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis, driven by reports of women who have killed their infants a relatively short time after birth. 
 For example, in Lakeview, Illinois, a North Side neighborhood of Chicago, a thirty-year-old woman who was reportedly suffering from severe postpartum depression was charged this month with first-degree murder in the suffocation death of her eight-month-old son in February of this year.  The woman had a college degree, no prior criminal history, and the Illinois child protective services agency had apparently not received any prior reports of child abuse or neglect as it had no contact with the family preceding this incident.  Jason Meisner, Cops: Lakeview Woman Suffocated 8-month-old Son, Chic. Trib., Apr. 14, 2011.
Conjecture has also swirled about the mental state of Lashanda Armstrong, who drove her minivan off a boat ramp in Newburgh, New York, on April 12th, killing herself and three of her four children, ages five, two, and eleven months, with a ten-year-old child able to roll down a window as the vehicle hit the water and escape.  James Barron, Woman Tells of Boy’s Plea for Help After 4 Drownings, N.Y. Times, Apr. 13, 2011. This event has sparked a discussion of how often mothers kill their children, what causes it, and how it can be prevented.  For a widely circulated report, see Jocelyn Noveck, Moms Killing Kids Not Nearly as Rare as We Think, Assoc. Press, Apr. 16, 2011. 
Probably the most well-known related case involved Andrea Yates, who drowned her five young children, ages six months to seven years, in the bathtub of her suburban home outside Houston in 2001.  Yates had been suffering for years from very severe postpartum depression and psychosis, with a psychiatrist urging her after the birth of her fourth child not to have any more children.  Her initial conviction of capitol murder and a sentence of life imprisonment was overturned on appeal.  At her second trial, Yates was found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed to a state psychiatric facility, where she remains today.  Associated Press, Woman Not Guilty in Retrial in the Deaths of Her 5 Children, N.Y. Times, July 27, 2006.  See also Christine Michalopoulos, Filling in the Holes of the Insanity Defense: The Andrea Yates Case and the Need for a New Prong, 10 Va. J. Soc. Pol’y & L. 383 (2002-03; Kristine Esme Nelson, Postpartum Psychosis and Women Who Kill Their Children: Making the Punishment Fit the Crime, 23(2) Dev. Mental Health L. 23, 36 (2004) (“The American legal system as it currently exists is not equipped to respond in an appropriate fashion to these crimes.”). 
In 2010, as part of The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), section 2952, entitled “Support, Education, and Research for Postpartum Depression,” was enacted.  This provision was based on the Melanie Blocker Stokes MOTHERS Act, a bill that had been stalled in Congress for a number of years, in part because of concerns that it would result in mandatory mental health screening for all new mothers.  As enacted, however, it has a much narrower scope.  This section encourages the Secretary of Health and Human services “to continue activities on postpartum depression or postpartum psychosis . . . , including research to expand the understanding of the causes of, and treatments for, postpartum conditions.”  Activities that are encouraged include “[t]he development of improved screening and diagnostic techniques” and “[i]nformation and education programs for health care professionals and the public.”  Congress authorized $3 million to support these activities for fiscal year 2010.  It also charged the Secretary to conduct a study on the benefits of screening for postpartum conditions and to submit a related report to Congress within two years of the enactment of this bill.  For the text of just this portion of the PPACA, see PerinatalPro.com, Melanie Blocker Stokes MOTHERS Act Signed Into Law!, Mar. 21, 2010.  For the PPACA in full, see here. 
An associated Congressional Report states,

In the United States, there may be as many as 800,000 new cases of postpartum conditions each year. . . . Postpartum depression occurs after 10% to 15% of all deliveries and after 26% to 32% of all adolescent deliveries.  The majority of patients suffer from this illness for more than 6 months and, if untreated, 25% of patients are still depressed a year later. . . . The most severe postpartum condition is postpartum psychosis.  A comparatively rare disease, it complicates only 0.1% to 0.2% of deliveries. 

H.R. Rep. No. 111-48, at 4-5 (2009.
This provision had been pursued in memory of Melanie Stokes, who committed suicide in 2001, three http://www.law.virginia.edu/lawweb/faculty.nsf/FHPbI/1169425months after giving birth to a daughter.  Stokes, in her late 30s, managed a sales team at a pharmaceutical company and was married to a urologic surgeon.  The couple had tried for several years to get pregnant and Stokes purportedly greeted the news with joy.  However, after giving birth to her child, she was unresponsive when the doctor told her that her new child was a girl and within days began talking of killing herself.  Hospitalized four times, she threw herself from the twelfth floor of a hotel a week after her last discharge.  Lisa Pevtzow, Law Gives $3 Million to Educate, Research Post-Partum Depression: Dedicated Mom Spent Nine Years Working to Pass ‘Melanie’s Law’, Chic. Trib., May 21, 2010.
Historically, a diagnosis of postpartum depression has received limited weight in conjunction with criminal justice proceedings.  A ruling by the Iowa Supreme Court suggests that courts may be changing their views somewhat.  The court noted that the defendant in this case, Heidi Anfinson, had told officers that she had left her two-week-old son alone in the bathtub so that she could use the telephone in another room.  When she returned, the baby had drowned.  Panicked, she took the body, drove it to a nearby lake, left it in the water, and drove home.  Anfinson pled not guilty to charges of first-degree murder and child endangerment.  Although her lawyer was aware that Anfinson probably suffered from postpartum depression following her son’s birth, the lawyer summarily dismissed the notion that this condition could http://www.law.virginia.edu/lawweb/faculty.nsf/FHPbI/1169425be used in her defense.  Further, he failed to investigate Anfinson’s medical history, or the extent of her symptoms and how they might otherwise explain behavior the jury might find unnatural or unforgiveable.  Although the first trial resulted in a mistrial as the jury was unable to reach a unanimous decision, the jury at a second trial convicted her of second-degree murder.
On appeal, Anfinson argued that she had received ineffective assistance of counsel.  Upon reviewing the matter, the Iowa Supreme Court determined that Anfinson’s attorney was aware of the probability that she suffered from postpartum depression after her child’s birth, but “categorically rejected any suggestion that this condition be explored in her defense.”  The court acknowledged that the evidence of postpartum depression would not have qualified Anfinson for either an insanity or diminished responsibility defense in this particular instance, but determined that it likely would have affected the outcome of her case by bolstering her claim that the death was accidental and by explaining to the jury why a mother would neglect her newborn while it was in the bathtub, why she would irrationally bury the body in a lake following the drowning, and why she would appear emotionless about the ordeal when questioned later that day.  Courts are generally reluctant to find a lawyer’s assistance ineffective when it reflects a tactical decision; however, the court in this case determined that the lawyer’s decision to present no evidence of postpartum depression called into doubt the fairness of the outcome of Anfinson’s trial and remanded the case for a new trial.  Anfinson v. State, 758 N.W.2d 496 (Iowa 2008),
Anfinson ultimately entered into a plea in October of 2009, a week before her third trial was scheduled to begin.  Her original conviction carried a fifty-year mandatory sentence.  Under her plea, she received a fifty-year non-mandatory sentence.  With time already served, it was reported that she could be paroled within one to four years.  EveryPurpose.org, Plea Bargain Reached (Oct. 28, 2009).  This website also provides links to accounts by Anfinson’s husband, sister, and brother-in-law.
http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/healthlawprof_blog/2011/04/postpartum-depression-and-women-who-kill-their-children.html

NEONTACIDE (multiple): Holland: Sietske H sentenced for four deaths

Jeanne Sager :  May 4, 2011

It would be easy to cast Sietske H., a woman just convicted in the Netherlands for smothering four newborns to death, as a villain. The bare bones of her case -- woman gets pregnant, kills baby because she is afraid of her parents' judgement, woman gets pregnant three more times, only to again kill each successive child -- read like a horror story far worse than anything Wes Craven could concoct.

And yet, it's the very bareness of the reports coming from the Dutch press that make Sietske H.'s story so hard to comprehend. Is she a sick, twisted murderer? A psychopath in the truest sense of the word? I'd like to say yes. It would make me feel better about society to put her in that box and close the lid, to make her and the horrors she inflicted on those poor babies go away. It would make it easier to cast her as a villain and an anomaly both. But I can't.
I can't because there are too many variables unaccounted for in the stories about Sietske H. They say they don't know why she became pregnant again and again even after her first stab at motherhood went so awfully wrong. It makes me shudder, makes me angry to think that a woman would do that. And yet, I wonder: Was she being raped? Victimized? Did she follow a religious path that forbade contraception?
As she's gone through the criminal proceedings, Sietske (which, by the way, is the only name given -- she's being protected under Dutch law) refused psychological treatment, despite a court order. And so I wonder: is she insane? Depressed? Suffering from a psychosis that, if treated, would have saved her and the babies both? And if she is -- why hasn't anyone noticed it, stepped forward? It might not excuse this tragedy, but it would explain it, no?
That Sietske apparently hid her pregnancy not just from her parents but from the father of the babies makes this case that much harder to pin down. It drives home that she didn't trust this man enough to talk to him about the pregnancy, making both the possibility she was a victim and the possibility she was mentally ill entirely feasible. It also makes for a good case that someone else in her life is complicit in this sad, tragic tale. To hide one pregnancy is possible; to hide four seems more than a little impossible -- if only because with each progressive pregnancy, the changes in a body become more apparent. A tight little tummy retained in the first pregnancy is a sagging mess by baby number four. So I ask: Why didn't they stop her? Why aren't they on trial too? Why is only Sietske H. headed for prison?
Sietske will spend 12 years in prison under Dutch law. Those four babies will not be forgotten. But I can't say whether justice was served here -- not really. Can you?
http://thestir.cafemom.com/in_the_news/119867/dutch_mother_kills_4_newborns

NEONATICIDE: Alberta: The verdict on Katrina Effert

David Staples : May 2, 2011

 

WETASKIWIN - Two juries have rendered unprecedented and controversial guilty verdicts in the murder case of Katrina Effert, but Effert's peer group in the town of Wetaskiwin is still trying to make sense of what went wrong with Effert.

They are finding no easy answers.
The Effert case is divisive. Two juries--one in Wetaskiwin in 2006, the second in Edmonton this past week--clearly saw Effert, 23, as a killer for strangling to death her newborn son Rodney. But many others argue that she is also a victim here. The recent verdict and Effert's mandatory life sentence with no parole for 10 years is an extreme departure in how the courts treat women who take the lives of their newborns.
Compassion, rather than extended jail time, is the norm for a mother who commits infanticide, the killing of a child less than one year of age by a mother with a mind disturbed by giving birth or by lactation. No Canadian woman has gone to jail for longer than a year for this crime since a legal provision for infanticide was enacted in 1948. Instead, convicted mothers usually get no jail time.
Effert's lawyer, Peter Royal, harshly criticized the Edmonton jury's verdict and said the case will promptly be appealed to a higher court, just as the first guilty verdict was. "On occasion, we have perverse verdicts, and this is one of them," Royal said in court last week. "This verdict is simply wrong."
Kirsten Kramar, a University of Winnipeg professor and an expert on infanticide, called the jury's decision a travesty of justice. "There is no doubt it will get overturned on appeal."
No one on either the Wetaskiwin or the Edmonton jury is allowed to talk about their deliberations. They are prohibited from defending their verdict. Yet as radical a departure as Effert's sentence was, the verdict itself is part of a trend that has seen many Canadians put the right to life of newborn children ahead of sympathy for infanticidal mothers.
The change in attitude has grown out of decades of social change that improved the lot of single mothers. In the past, many single mothers gave birth in shame and isolation to what were then called bastard children. Contraception, abortion, foster care and adoption agencies are all available. Emergency care is a 911 call away. As Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin noted in her 1991 report Crime and Women-- Feminine Equality and the Criminal Law: "Women faced with an unwanted pregnancy now have a number of less desperate alternatives available to them."
Such developments have led some people to no longer regard the killing of a newborn as the justifiable act of a desperate, possibly deranged woman, but as the ultimate form of child abuse. It's possible some members of the Wetaskiwin and Edmonton juries held this view.
They would not be alone in this conviction. While Effert's family and some of her friends stand by her in fierce fashion, some of her other old friends and acquaintances agree that she is guilty of murder. Their judgment of Effert dates to the summer of 2004, when 19-year-old Katrina Effert first told friends she was pregnant.
That summer had been an endless parade of wakeboarding, beer drinking, karaoke, cars and parties for Effert and her friends in Wetaskiwin. Everyone in Effert's gang was just out of high school, working low-wage jobs, charging into the world of adult pleasures and cares.
One day late in the summer, Effert sought out her friend Vanessa Dancey at a house party. Effert asked Vanessa if she wanted to go outside for a smoke. The two sat down on the curb, Dancey recalled.
"I have to talk to you," Effert said. "I found out I'm pregnant."
"What are you going to do?" "I don't know quite yet. I don't really want to have kids, but I do."
Dancey knew Effert as a tough chick, who would stand up with her mouth and, if necessary, her fists if anyone annoyed her. But Effert looked scared and sounded like she might be thinking of having an abortion. Dancey knew that Effert didn't have a regular boyfriend and made no mention of the baby's father. "Whatever you do, make sure you keep it," Dancey told her. "If you have to, give it up for adoption."
"OK," Effert replied.
Effert told a few others of her predicament, including Dancey's boyfriend, Kyle Heemeryck. She mentioned to him that a guy named Dan from Red Deer was the father. Heemeryck remembered the night earlier in the summer when Effert had met Dan at a bar, but Heemeryck hadn't seen the two together again. She and Dan seemingly had just had a short fling. This, too, was Dan's story. As he would later testify at Effert's first trial: "We were friends, I guess. Well, girlfriend-boyfriend, but I never saw her very often 'cause I was always working."
The two had sex once, but he used a condom, he testified. That was the last he saw Effert. Nine months later, in April 2005, the RCMP knocked on his apartment door to tell him Effert was linking him to the murder of a newborn child.
Devani Mah, one of Effert's closest friends, never heard any mention of Dan. Mah had known Effert since childhood. Her friend was always up for a good time, always bubbly and chatty. But now, one evening near the end of the summer of 2004, Mah noticed Effert was unusually quiet. They walked along a sidewalk together.
"What's your problem?" Mah asked.
"I don't know."
"What do you mean?" "I think I might be pregnant." "Oh?" "Yeah"
"That kind of sucks for you," Mah said in a joking but glib manner.
Effert laughed and looked away. It was the last that Mah heard about her being pregnant. Mah figured Effert didn't bring it up again because she realized she wasn't pregnant. But after
all that happened later, Mah wondered if she might have been more supportive that night.
"I think I could have been, 'What, you OK?' But I was young. I didn't care."
A short time later, in the early fall of 2004, Effert was out drinking at a local bar when she met up again with Vanessa Dancey and Kyle Heemeryck. Dancey was alarmed. "How come you are here drinking?" she asked.
"It was just a scare," Effert said, explaining that she took a home pregnancy test and it was negative.
Of course, the 18-year-old was pregnant, but had come up with something of a plan, at least if you go by what she would later tell psychiatrist Vijay Singh and psychologist Marc Nesca. Effert had dreamed of having a house, a husband and a baby, but her pregnancy didn't fit into the picture. Still, she wouldn't have an abortion. She felt that would be wrong and was scared of getting one. She decided she would keep the baby, but tell no one about it. When she felt the baby was about to be born, she would go to the hospital, give birth, then give up the baby. No one would have to find out. She wouldn't have to tell her parents.
She began to wear loose and baggy clothes. She successfully hid her pregnancy from almost everyone, but not, it would seem, from her mother, Marlene.
Effert still lived at home with her parents in a bungalow behind Wetaskiwin's main commercial street. Marlene ran a hair salon, while Katrina's father Kim worked as a labourer at a Home Hardware distribution centre. In December 2004--three months after Effert had told a few friends of her pregnancy-- Marlene heard a rumour that her daughter was pregnant. Marlene thought it was a case of mistaken identity because her son Ryan's fiancee, Crystal Anstey, was pregnant. Still, Marlene decided to confront her daughter. She had been pestering her for a year to go on birth control, but Katrina denied she was having sex. However, Katrina looked to Marlene as if she had put on a few pounds.
Maybe she was putting on weight because she wasn't exercising, Marlene thought. In high school, Katrina had been a jock, playing on the high school volleyball and basketball teams. But she was working at a pizza place, so maybe she was gaining extra pounds snacking on the job.
Katrina denied to her mother that she was pregnant. As she would later indicate to Singh, Katrina feared her mother would push her to get an abortion. At times, she overheard her parents arguing about the issue, with Marlene telling her husband she thought Katrina was pregnant.
Her father didn't believe it. Katrina and her father had always been close and would confide in each other. He taught her to drive and they often worked together fixing cars, including Katrina's minivan.
Marlene didn't let go of the issue. In February 2005, six months into Katrina's pregnancy, she again confronted her daughter to no avail.
That winter, Katrina continued to smoke and kept going out to bars with Devani Mah. They would usually have a few drinks at local bars like the Players Club, Centaurs, and Slicks, Mah said. Effert loved to get up and sing karaoke in her beautiful voice, crowd-pleasing renditions of Sarah McLachlan's Angel and I Will Remember You.
Effert maintained profiles of herself on various social networking sites. She used a picture of herself lying in a bikini and tanned as her main profile photo. "I have brown hair green eyes, i'm5'8" tanned athletic build, nose ring, tongue ring, tattoo, and I am very athletic," she wrote on one site, adding that her interests were writing music, singing, drawing, sports, wakeboarding, snowboarding, Ski-Dooing, quadding and racing cars.
One day at Boston Pizza, she was out having a smoke when a co-worker, Jamie Vergette, confronted her, and asked why she was smoking when she was pregnant.
As Vergette would later testify at Effert's second trial, Effert replied that her baby was dead but she still had to carry it to term.
On Thursday, April 14, 2005, Effert gave birth to the child in her basement. A few hours later, she killed the child. Effert called in sick to Boston Pizza, saying she had the flu. She dumped the baby over her fence into a sheltered spot behind a shed in her neighbour's yard. Her thong underwear was wrapped five times in a tight ligature around the baby's neck. There was no knot.
She carried on with her life, seemingly as usual. On Saturday April 16, she and her father spent the day working on a Toyota in the backyard. She went to her brother's house that night and played cards until 4 a. m. The next day, she went shopping with her mom at Canadian Tire. Later, she visited her sister-in-law and her aunt, then spent the evening watching a movie with her mom.
The baby was discovered April 18 at 8:40 a. m. by Effert's neighbour, Ed Zaft. His thoughts went to the girls next door, Katrina and her sister-in-law Crystal. He thought both had looked pregnant.
A team of 17 RCMP officers started work on the case, one that would see them interview 200 women as the baby's possible mother.
Just after noon on April 18, four days after the homicide, Const. Beth Phillip knocked on the Efferts' door, pulled out a tape recorder and interviewed Katrina.
Effert said she hadn't seen or heard anything suspicious.
"This question may seem a little personal, Katrina," Phillip said, "but were you at any time prior to today pregnant?"
"No, I haven't even had sex yet so," she said.
Phillip asked Effert if anyone around had been pregnant. Effert mentioned she had suspicions about a young neighbourhood girl. This was the first but not the last time she would cast suspicion on others.
After the RCMP left, Marlene confronted her daughter and asked if the baby was her child. Katrina denied it was, but was upset by her mother's doubts, as her sister-in-law Crystal Anstey would later testify: "She was really mad that her mom would ask her."
On April 25, 11 days after the homicide, Effert was asked to come into the RCMP office. She met with Cpl. Judy McDonald, a veteran officer. During their lengthy talk, Effert came across as chatty and co-operative, with nothing to hide. Effert told McDonald about past boyfriends, how she had had two high school boyfriends who cheated on her. She had also dated a guy named Dan from Red Deer, she said. She couldn't remember his last name, she told McDonald, but it had a crazy spelling, "Asgq" or something. They had met in June 2004 and had last hung out at her family reunion on Aug. 30, 2004.
Though she had had boyfriends, she was still a virgin, she told McDonald. "I'm 19 and I haven't."
She planned to have sex maybe once she was engaged and wanted kids. "I want it to be one person and one person only."
If she had a child, she said she would name him Rodney David Effert.
"So are you ready to become a mother?" McDonald asked.
"Oh God no. That's why I haven't had sex yet. That's why I don't want a boyfriend."
McDonald asked Effert if she had put on any weight. Effert said she had gained about five pounds during the Christmas holidays, but took off the weight by playing sports. She had played rugby on a women's team recently. "I was bruised from head to toe two months ago. It was unreal."
Knowing the baby had been found choked to death with thong underwear, McDonald asked Effert about her underwear. She wore only black or white plain underwear, she said, never anything like a thong. "What do I need them fancy? I don't have sex."
Effert said she had been hearing lots of rumours about the homicide, such as the baby coming from a young girl or someone on crack cocaine. She had seen a strange vehicle in her neighbourhood, and two people, a man and a woman out walking, she said, then gave detailed descriptions of the truck, the man and the woman to the RCMP. "Me and my parents think it's someone from out of town."
McDonald asked Effert what kind of person would murder a baby.
"Someone that needs help. Someone with problems. Like, you know, either a drug problem or alcohol problem or family problems or relationship problems....I don't know what the person was thinking....They just need to talk to someone to figure out why they did it, you know....If they were scared, you know, there's so many options out there, like, they could have dropped it off. They could have at least put it on our doorstep, rang the doorbell and took off. They could have taken it to the hospital to drop it off.... I feel for that baby, really, I do, because the baby has no chance, had no chance to fight back. It was a helpless soul, you know....Maybe they didn't know what they were doing...."
Effert allowed police to search her underwear drawer. She gave also them a DNA sample, but before she had to face an internal exam set up by the RCMP, she started to confess.
On the morning of April 27, 13 days after the killing, she approached her father, Kim, who was watching The Price is Right.
The baby might be hers, she said.
At once, he called the police. When two RCMP constables arrived, they found Katrina and her dad crying hysterically in the kitchen.
When police interviewed her, Effert now had a new story, one the first trial judge described as "zany." She had dated a man named Dan, who got her pregnant. When she went into labour, she called Dan in Red Deer. He drove to meet her and she gave birth in Dan's car in the parking lot of the Wetaskiwin McDonald's. She told the police Dan dropped her off at home and promised to take the baby to the hospital.
At once, the police arrested Effert. After she was checked by a doctor, McDonald again interviewed her and she gave more details, claiming that later in the morning, several hours after she had given birth and left the baby with Dan, he called her to say he had dropped the child at the hospital.
After the baby's body was found, however, both he and his friends called to threaten her if she ratted to the police. "He told me he got rid of it," Effert said. "He just told me that he didn't take the baby to the hospital and if I ever went to anyone and he found out that I'd be next, and then his friends call me all the time and tell me the same thing."
She had no doubts that he was the father. She had told him about her pregnancy over the phone back in October 2004, saying she planned to give up the baby for adoption.
McDonald pushed Effert on the issue of underwear that night, reminding the girl her DNA would be on her clothing, such as her thong underwear. "DNA doesn't lie....Is there
any reason that we'll find your DNA on these items?"
"Well, there shouldn't be," Effert replied.
Katrina could provide no motive to the police for Dan killing the child. McDonald told her that the police weren't buying her story, that it made more sense that something happened to the baby when it was with her, and that she herself had put the baby over the fence.
"No, I didn't put it there," Effert insisted. "I didn't even know until Monday about it."
At that point, Effert was shown a picture of the thong underwear and told that it caused the death.
The interview left Effert with a new fear, that the police might find her DNA on her thong underwear. How to explain that? The following morning, April 28, she was ready with yet another version of events. She now told McDonald that she gave birth at home alone. "I was scared and I didn't want my parents to know because my mom wanted me to get an abortion when she found out that I was pregnant."
At first, the baby was fine. "I held him and I was cuddling with him."
She cut the umbilical chord with scissors. She was going to go upstairs to tell her mom, but held the baby too tight and he stopped breathing. "And I got scared and I dropped him. And I was too scared to go to the hospital. Then I made it look like I murdered him. And the next day, I was gonna go to the hospital and I couldn't gather myself to do it. So I put him in my neighbour's yard until I could figure out what to do."
McDonald asked if Effert did anything to the baby before she took him outside?
"I put my underwear around his neck," she said.
"OK, and tell me why you did that?" "Because I wanted it to look like a murder
because I felt like I had murdered him," she said, adding that the baby wasn't breathing when she put the thong around the neck.
"And what was going through your mind then Katrina?" McDonald asked.
"That I killed my baby. That I could give him a chance to live because I should have went to the hospital that night."
"Who's the father of that child?" McDonald asked.
"I don't know."
More questions from McDonald revealed that Effert had narrowed it down to one of four guys. Effert knew the last name of only one of them, she said. She didn't know Dan's last name.
McDonald congratulated Effert for at last telling the truth, but there was still a problem with Effert's story, the fact that the thong had been wrapped so tightly around the child's neck. A short time later, the RCMP interviewed her one more time. This time the police brought in a homicide specialist, Const. Dan McCullum, of Calgary Major Crimes.
McCullum was more confrontational. "There is no doubt in my mind that you're responsible for killing that baby. OK?" he told Effert. "And you know and I know how that baby got killed, OK."
McCullum said he was concerned about one thing, that she had never expressed remorse. "Are you sorry for what happened?"
"More than anything," Effert said. McCullum then asked Effert why she had
never talked to someone about being pregnant.
She started to weep. "I was scared." "Were you? What were you scared of? "Disappointing my family and not being
ready to be a mom. And my baby, not finding a decent home to be in."
McCullum told Effert he had been to Red Deer to talk to Dan, and then chastised Effert, saying he had gone to arrest the young man. "You sent us on a little bit of a goose chase there....Based on what you told us yesterday, he could have been arrested and charged for murder."
He told Effert that he believed the crime wasn't planned, that it was done in the spur of the moment, that she panicked because her parents might find out: "You had to kill Rodney, right?"
"Yeah. You were right, I was scared 'cause I was scared my mom was gonna wake up and my dad was gonna come home."
"He started to cry?"
"That's why I panicked...I dropped him." "OK, and then what happened?" "I tried covering his face." "With what?"
"A towel...And then I put him face down. And then I wrapped my underwear around his neck. 'Cause I wanted him to stop crying."
"OK, and how long did it take him to stop crying."
"I don't know, about two or three minutes, but I'm not too sure."
McCullum asked how she used the orange thong.
"I just twisted it and put it around, I'm not even sure how I did it."
"OK, and when did you put your thong on him?"
"Ah, probably 7 a. m. before my dad came home....I held him(Rodney)and then around 7:30 a. m. I put him on the side of my bed cause I couldn't look at him anymore."
She dropped him over the fence at around 11 a. m., she said. "I hugged him and I told him I loved him."
"Good for you."
"And I told him I was sorry. And then I tossed him over and I looked at him through the fence for about 20 minutes, and then I went into the house....I was feeling really bad and I was feeling like I did something that I know I did something wrong and I wanted to take it back."
On May 30, 2005, Effert was sent to Alberta Hospital for a psychiatric examination. She was put under the care of psychiatrist Dr. Vijay Singh and a team of nurses, social workers and psychologists. They came to like Effert, finding her a friendly, courteous, warm and sympathetic person. Effert took care of her own hygiene, had a healthy appetite and participated in activities. Singh didn't see her as being depressed or psychotic.
In his talks with Effert, she painted a bleak picture of her relations with her unnamed boyfriend.
When a home pregnancy test was positive, she said she spoke to her boyfriend, but painted him as a jerk: "He was the one who pressured me into this (having sex). He was the one who abused me. I feel quite hurt and betrayed. He always told me he loved me."
It's not clear if Singh ever verified her story about her boyfriend.
When it came to the homicide, Efert told yet another tale, this time that she placed a towel over the baby's mouth to stop him from crying, then fell asleep. She woke up in the morning and found the baby dead. "There was something around his neck, a pair of underwear, orange in colour, one of the worst feelings I have ever had. I was in shock and horror."
In his report on Effert, Singh concluded she wasn't suffering from a major mental disorder when she killed the baby. Still, he wrote, she had been in "affective denial" about her pregnancy, meaning she knew she was pregnant, but had none of the accompanying emotional and behavioural changes of pregnancy.
Singh found that Effert had many of the traits of the typical infanticidal mother:she was immature, emotionally isolated from the baby's father, unlikely to be able to support her baby financially, carried the baby in secret, received no prenatal care and gave birth alone.
When Effert gave birth, Singh concluded, she killed the baby because of her disturbed mind.
Effert was released from Alberta Hospital and went home to work and await her trial dates. In July 2005, her sister-in-law Crystal gave birth to a baby. Effert was photographed holding the child lovingly, the photo posted on the Internet. Effert joined a local Wetaskiwin church and started to sing in the choir. She worked at her mother's hair salon.
In the spring of 2006, her defence lawyer hired a psychologist, Dr. Marc Nesca, to determine Effert's state of mind when she killed her baby. In his report, Nesca wrote: "Her experience of childbirth included intense fear and pain. She felt helpless, experienced the process of giving birth as dreamlike, and is unable to recall portions of the birthing process. Subsequent to the birth of her baby, Ms. Effert felt dazed and oddly detached from her environment."
It was in this state, suffering from an "acute stress disorder," a major mental breakdown, that she had killed the child, Nesca said.
In the end, Nesca and Singh didn't agree on Effert's precise mental state at the time of the baby's birth, but did agree that she was disturbed when she killed Rodney. If their testimony was accepted by the jury, Effert would avoid a murder or manslaughter conviction, but would be convicted of the lesser charge of infanticide.
In both trials, the Crown prosecutors hammered away at Singh and Nesca on similar points, namely that both relied on Effert's version of events to base their decisions, so if she was lying to them, their decisions were essentially worthless.
The prosecutors also drew attention to the issue of Nesca and Singh's disagreeing about Effert's precise state of mind when she killed.
In the end, of course, the Wetaskiwin and Edmonton juries were not swayed by the psychiatric evidence.
Why?
During Effert's successful appeal of her first conviction, prosecutor Susan D. Hughson suggested: "It was (Effert's) web of lies and her attempts to manipulate others that led to her arrest and ultimate conviction.
"Her lies to her family, her lies to her friends, her lies to investigators and even her lies to experts assessing her mental state became the fundamental flaw with the offence of infanticide...which led to eventual downfall."
The expert evidence of Singh and Nesca was "fatally flawed," Hughson added. "(Effert's) own information to the experts was inconsistent, self-serving and entirely lacking in credibility....Even though they both provided the opinion that at the time of childbirth (Effert) might have been suffering from a disturbance of the mind, there was little else they agreed upon."
Back in Wetaskiwin, Effert's old friends have been left to struggle with the various conflicting stories and testimony about Effert.
"There's a lot of people who still talk about her and call her a criminal. But she's not. She made one mistake," Devani Mah said in an October 2007 interview.
At first, Mah was disgusted by her friend's action. But Mah wishes she had been there to help Effert.
"I hear people talking about her in town and I say, 'You guys, you don't even know what she went through.' They're just mean to her behind her back, call her murderer. They're just like, 'She's a stupid ass, a stupid bitch.' I'm like, 'Dude, shut up. Seriously.'"
People have paintballed the Efferts house and their vehicle has been egged at traffic lights. Marlene Effert had to twice call the police to the beauty salon to get rid of angry people, said a close family friend, Richard.
He defends Effert as a good person. "She's one of the best friends you can have. If you're in trouble, she'll bail you out.
"What happened with Katrina was not straight-out murder. She was not mentally there. She had just pushed the kid out by herself. She was scared. Her parents are good parents, but at the same time, when the kids did wrong, they were scary. They didn't beat them, but they made sure they knew they did wrong. And she was scared of that. ...Basically what happened is, she got scared and she panicked."
But another of Effert's old acquaintances, Kyle Heemeryck, felt the court decision was right. "I think she got the sentence she deserved."
The baby's alleged father, Dan, was perhaps least forgiving. In an October 2007 interview, he said he was disgusted by Effert's accusations of abuse against him. "That's not true, man. There's no proof of nothing."
Dan doesn't believe the child was his, but thinks Effert should pay for murder.
"I think she should go to jail forever. The kid didn't have a chance."

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/verdict+Katrina+Effert/4711596/story.html#ixzz1LlB3jYjP

FILICIDE: California: Rosondra Clay convicted of starving son gets probation

May 05, 2011 : Tomoya Shimura

VICTORVILLE • A Victorville mother convicted of starving her disabled son to death got off with the 359 days she served while awaiting trial because evidence showed Child Protective Services repeatedly told her the victim was doing fine.
JAMES QUIGG, DAILY PRESS

Rosondra Clay walks into the courtroom for her sentencing hearing Thursday morning. Clay was given a suspended 4 year sentence, and five years of supervised probation for involuntary manslaughter of her disabled son.

Victorville Superior Court Judge Jules Fleuret put Rosondra Marie Clay, 30, on five-year supervised probation for involuntary manslaughter, following the plea agreement and a probation officer’s recommendation.
Clay, who was originally charged with the murder of 5-year-old Kevin Baldwin, accepted the prosecution’s offer and pleaded guilty to the lesser charge on April 2.
After postponing the sentencing for a week to review facts of the case, Fleuret said Thursday the plea agreement was appropriate.
Fleuret said Clay didn’t intend to kill Baldwin, who weighed just 15 pounds when he died from severe malnutrition in July 2008.
Baldwin had severe spastic cerebral palsy and no muscular control. It was difficult to feed the child because he had no control over his tongue, said David Sanders, Clay’s attorney. Because of Baldwin’s medical condition, the family was receiving assistance from various county agencies.
Every time San Bernardino County CPS agents met with Clay, they concluded that Baldwin and Clay’s other children were doing fine, Fleuret said. When Clay pointed out Baldwin was not gaining weight, CPS didn’t take any action, Fleuret said.
The judge said CPS reported Clay had taken good care of Baldwin. Just 14 days before the victim died, CPS conducted an office visit and determined the child looked fine. And three days before the death, CPS agents visited Clay’s house and allowed the child to stay with the mother.
“My client might have made some mistakes, but CPS did not provide her the support she should have been able to rely on,” Sanders said.
Spokespersons for the CPS and county could not immediately be reached for comment.
Sanders said Clay will be able to reunite with her three children, including a baby she had had right before her arrest.
Clay was scheduled to be released Thursday evening after serving 359 days in jail since her arrest. If she violates her probation terms, she could be sentenced to an aggravated term of four years in prison.
http://www.vvdailypress.com/news/son-27537-starving-convicted.html

FILICIDE with Suicide: the issue discussed

OAK HARBOR -- Alan Atwater abused his wife Dawn, forced her to quit her job and encouraged her to have sex with one of his friends, family friends told authorities.
But despite problems in their marriage, Atwater told his aunt he was determined to change and make his wife understand she and their children were most important to him.
Dawn Atwater, however, told him and her friends she wanted to separate, according to Ottawa County Sheriff's Office reports.
These details, released last week, provide some possible explanation as to why Alan Atwater might have killed his wife and then himself with a gun April 16. Dawn Atwater told a friend her husband had threatened to commit suicide if she ever left him, according to reports.
"I'm just sick," Colette Yontz, a friend of Dawn Atwater, told investigators. "Just sick because we all knew this was going to happen."
What is more of a mystery is why he turned the gun on the couple's children, Ashley, 4, Isaac, 2, and Brady, 1.
Killing the children doesn't fit with the normal profile for murder-suicides related to marital problems, said Katherine van Wormer, professor of social work at the University of Northern Iowa and author of "Death by Domestic Violence: Preventing the Murders and the Murder-Suicides."
In cases where men kill their entire families -- an action known as familicide -- usually the man has lost his job or has other financial problems where he feels he can no longer provide for his family, she said.
"He may have killed her and felt he couldn't leave them," van Wormer said of the Atwater children.

Reasons for killings

There are five things that motivate people to kill their children, said Phillip Resnick, professor of psychology at Case Western University.
They are: Altruism, the idea the children are better off dead; revenge against the spouse, often over a custody battle or infidelity; the perpetrator is acutely psychotic; unwanted children, usually newborns killed by unwed mothers; and child battering, where a parent goes too far with disciplining a child and accidentally kills the child.
"If a man kills himself along with the children, it's more likely to be altruistic," Resnick said. "A man believes his family is better off in Heaven than in the world."
Resnick, who said he likely has interviewed more parents who killed their children than anyone else in the United States, is considered an expert on the subject. He testified for the defense in the trial of Andrea Yates, a Texas woman who drowned her children in a bathtub in 2001, and consulted on the case of Susan Smith, a South Carolina woman who murdered her two young children in 1994.
In 95 percent of familicide cases, men are the perpetrators, he said. Two-thirds of the time, a man who kills his children and himself also kills his wife, he said.
"Women may kill their children and themselves but rarely will kill their husbands," he said.
Men tend to feel responsible for the entire family and do not want to leave them behind, Resnick said. In situations with domestic problems, the men sometimes feel they cannot live without their partners or consider their partners the source of their pain, van Wormer said.
"Often these are men who are very dependent emotionally on their wives," she said. "They justify it as saying she's killing him, so he's going to kill her because she's the source of his pain.
"Once they take this first step, they feel they have to take the second step (suicide)."
Although Alan Atwater may not have planned to kill himself, he apparently had settled on doing so when he called the sheriff's office to report the deaths of his wife and children.
In that call, he calmly admitted to killing them and then said he was going to kill himself. Then he hung up.
Resnick, speaking in general, said people who commit suicide may be agitated at first while trying to decide whether or not to go through with it.
"Once they make a decision to do it, they feel at peace," he said.

Statistics elusive

Every year, more than 32,000 people commit suicide, and another 18,000 are victims of homicide, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Determining how many of those deaths result from homicide-suicide cases, however, is more difficult.
The CDC's National Violent Death Reporting System collects data from 16 states -- not including Ohio -- so numbers from those states cannot be considered representative of the entire country. In 2008, 175 people in those states died of homicide followed by suicide, according to the system.
What is known about these cases is that a past history of domestic abuse is the biggest risk factor, according to the National Institute of Justice, which is part of the U.S. Department of Justice. A study about murder-suicides conducted by Jacquelyn Campbell, professor at Johns Hopkins University's School of Nursing, showed domestic violence had been a past problem in 70 percent of the cases.
However, 25 percent of these incidents of violence showed up in police arrest records, according to the institute. The researchers in Campbell's study learned about the past incidents after interviewing family and friends of the homicide victims, according to the institute.
http://www.mansfieldnewsjournal.com/article/20110505/NEWS01/105050330/Experts-weigh-murder-suicide-northwest-Ohio?odyssey=tab%7Ctopnews%7Ctext%7CFrontpage

FETICIDE: India: the practice of female foeticide

From Reuters AlertNet, a video about the practice of female foeticide in India, which is causing an imbalance between the number of boys versus girls born in the country.

FILICIDE: New York: Thelma Armstrong charged with murder

WILLIAM J. GORTA April 27, 2011

An 8-month-old Brooklyn baby under ACS supervision died of pneumonia due to malnutrition and her parents have been charged with murder, officials said today.
ACS workers had been visiting little Taniese Anderson every two weeks and had seen the child just 10 days before she died in November last year, officials said.
Her parents, Thelma Armstrong and Winston Anderson, were initially charged with manslaughter, but a grand jury upped the charge to murder saying the couple recklessness tinged with “depraved indifference to human life” caused Taniese’s death.
They were arraigned yesterday before Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Patricia DiMango, who ordered them held without bail.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Last month, two ACS workers, caseworker Damon Adams and his supervisor Chereece Bell, were indicted for criminally negligent homicide in the death of 4-year-old Marchella Pierce who weighed just 18 pounds when she died.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/brooklyn/parents_charged_with_murder_after_ZEma8QJbzWoQJEWg52fMQN#ixzz1LIjjrvMu

FILICIDE: Florida: Amy Stephenson's sentence halved

Apr 25, 2011

A Florida Keys mom was sentenced to 13 years in prison Monday after she pleaded guilty to starving her child to death, the Miami Herald reports.

Amy Stephenson, 30, had been previously sentenced to 25 years behind bars for the crime, but the ruling was tossed out and now the mother of two had the sentence sliced in half.

According to prosecutors, Stephenson refused to feed her 13-month-old daughter Jasmine, who died in 2006. The little girl was the Key largo woman's third child and was born premature with a myriad of medical issues.

Jasmine died of chronic malnutrition according to the Monroe County Medical Examiner and weighed just under seven pounds.

Stephenson was originally found guilty of manslaughter in 2008, but the verdict was tossed out after an appellate court ruled a prosecutor's question about abortion may have prejudiced the jury.

http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/Mom-Gets-13-Yerars-For-Starving-Baby-to-Death-120636319.html

FILICIDE: Florida: Casey Anthony had chloroform in her car

A Florida judge ruled Wednesday that the jury in the upcoming trial of Casey Anthony can hear testimony that chloroform, a potentially fatal substance, was detected in the trunk of the woman's car.
Prosecutors contend that Anthony used "a substance" to kill her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee.
Anthony, 25, faces a capital murder charge in the death of her young daughter, plus six other charges including aggravated child abuse, aggravated manslaughter of a child and misleading law enforcement. The girl was reported missing in July 2008, about a month after she was last seen. It wasn't until five months later that investigators found her remains.
Orange County Superior Court Chief Judge Belvin Perry Jr. wrote that Arpad Vass, a research scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, will be allowed to testify about whether and how chloroform was found in Anthony's car.
Perry said testimony on chloroform will be admissible as long as prosecutors can establish a proper foundation for it.
His decision is a setback for the defense, which comes just one day after he sided with prosecutors on three other key evidence rulings.
First,
Perry ruled that "heart sticker" evidence will be admissible as long as prosecutors can establish a proper foundation. A FBI fingerprint examiner has testified that she saw residue consistent with the shape of a heart on duct tape found near Caylee's remains. Heart-shaped stickers were found at Anthony's house.
Second,
Perry ruled Tuesday that expert testimony about post-mortem hair banding will be admissible. Prosecutors say evidence of decomposition was found on a single strand of hair taken from the trunk of Anthony's car -- where, prosecutors allege, she stashed her daughter. Post-mortem hair banding is said to occur when the hair begins to decompose inside the hair follicle while still on the head of the deceased.
Finally,
he ruled that canine searches and alerts will be admissible at the trial as long as the state establishes a proper foundation. Cadaver dogs searching for Caylee's body signaled at two places -- the trunk of Anthony's car and in the backyard of her parents. Remains were not found at either location.

Anthony's case has generated an intense media spotlight because of its shocking nature -- prompting the court to move jury selection, scheduled to start on May 9, to another location because of concerns about getting an impartial jury in Orange County. Jurors will be transported to Orange Country for the trial.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/04/27/florida.mother.trial/

FILICIDE: Massacusetts: Sandra Dostie appeal denied

 April 30, 2011 FRED CONTRADA

NORTHAMPTON - Calling her claims "unfounded" and "roughly cobbled together," a judge has denied Sandra Dostie's motion for a new trial on the murder of her stepson.
Dostie, who is now 42, was convicted of first-degree murder in 1995 for smothering her 5-year-old stepson Eric Dostie in their Easthampton home. Prosecutors said Sandra Dostie resented the child support that Eric's father paid to his mother and the care Sandra had to provide the sickly boy, who had hemophilia. She was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.
Earlier this month, Dostie's new lawyer, Framingham attorney Sandra F. Bloomenthal, filed a motion for a new trial based on the contention that Janice Healy, who represented Dostie at her murder trial, violated attorney-client privilege by providing damning information to reporter Pippin Ross. Ross allegedly used the material in a Boston Magazine story published shortly before the trial. Although she included a copy of the story in her motion, along with an undated letter purportedly sent by Ross to Healy, Bloomenthal did not specify what information Healy supposedly shared with Ross. In fact, Ross' letter appears exculpatory, telling Healy she was not the primary source of the information for her story.

Judge Constance M. Sweeney, who presided over Dostie's murder trial, denied the motion Friday, less than 10 days after it was filed, calling the claims unsupported.
"A letter, which the defendant claims was written by the reporter to one of the defense attorneys, does not assist the defendant," Sweeney wrote. "The defendant fails to provide any credible basis for her allegation that one of her attorneys violated the ethical obligations attendant on the attorney-client relationship."
Sweeney goes on to say that Dostie was well represented, calling Healy a "highly experienced and skilled chief trial counsel." Healy, who currently works in the office of Northwestern District Attorney David E. Sullivan, could not be reached for comment. First Assistant District Attorney Steven E. Gagne released a statement saying, "We are pleased the court denied the defendant's motion and preserved Dostie's conviction for murdering a 5-year-old defenseless child."
In her request for a new trial, Dostie seemingly admits murdering her stepson but claims she was suffering from a "severe mental illness" brought on by pregnancy. Sweeney also dismisses that argument, noting that Dostie swore under oath at her trial that she did not kill the child but rather that Eric was murdered by two unidentified men who supposedly broke into the house.
"The evidence revealed that the defendant hatched an elaborate plan to murder the child and an even more elaborate plan to deflect suspicion away from her," Sweeney wrote. "She is not entitled to nor does she deserve a new trial."
Bloomenthal said Friday she will appeal Sweeney's ruling. She declined to comment further, saying she had not yet seen it.
Ross did not respond to requests for an interview. At the time of Dostie's trial in 1995, she enjoyed a successful career as a journalist, reporting for the Amherst-based radio station WFCR-FM and writing for magazines. An alcohol addiction took a toll on her career, however, and she was sentenced to jail in 2005 for operating under the influence of alcohol as a fourth offender. Ross compounded her troubles when she forged documents for her early release. Charges resulting from that crime landed her in Framingham State Prison, where she became Dostie's fellow inmate. Although the two women were acquainted there, Dostie's lawyer has declined to disclose the nature of their discussions.
http://www.masslive.com/chicopeeholyoke/republican/index.ssf?/base/news-33/1304147781307291.xml&coll=1

FILICIDE: California: Anul Malik Ram pleads insanity - prosecution's compromise

Andy Furillo: Apr. 30, 2011

 Anul Malik Ram admits drowning her daughter, 3, but made an insanity plea in her son's attempted murder.

 

With psychiatric medications already in her system, Anul Malik Ram came home from work one night and drank a 24-ounce bottle of Corona and smoked two packs of cigarettes in four hours, according to testimony at her preliminary hearing.Then, authorities said, she went over to her estranged husband's house, picked up their two kids, took them home – and drowned her 3-year-old daughter in the bathtub.

The 32-year-old licensed vocational nurse admitted the second-degree murder Friday in Sacramento Superior Court. Ram is scheduled to be sentenced to prison for 15 years to life when she returns to face Judge Marjorie Koller on May 20. Deputy District Attorney Charles Gonzalez said the plea deal came at the request of Assistant Public Defender Jeff Barbour. The prosecutor characterized the agreement as a "dual plea" – of guilt to the murder charge while at the same time she contends she is not guilty by reason of insanity to the attempted murder of her then-7-year-old son.

If Ram had been found not guilty by reason of insanity to the murder, she would have been sent to a state mental hospital for an indefinite term. If hospital officials later decided she had been restored to sanity, she could have been released to community placement well before the 15-year minimum she now faces."This was a compromise," Gonzalez said. "She gets to go to the hospital, but if she ever regains her sanity, she goes to prison. They gain the benefit of knowing she's going to the hospital, and we gain the benefit of knowing she'll get at least 15 years."If she would have been found not guilty by reason of insanity, she could have been released in a year."Barbour did not return a phone call for comment.Ram pleaded guilty to the single count of second-degree murder in the Nov. 15, 2009, drowning death of her daughter, Divya Ram. She also was charged with trying to murder her son, Devan, in her apartment in the 7300 block of Greenhaven Drive.According to testimony at her Oct. 1, 2010, preliminary hearing, Ram told detectives she was bipolar and depressed. The detectives testified she had been taking Lamictal for her seizures, Abilify for her depression and schizophrenia, and Lexapro for depression and anxiety. A DA's office news release said Ram once tried to kill herself and had spent some time in a mental hospital for psychiatric treatment. At her preliminary hearing, Sacramento Police Detective Jason Kirtlan said Ram "was aware there were precautions on the medications not to drink" while taking them.But on the fatal Saturday night she came home from work to an empty apartment, "she was depressed and hearing voices," Kirtlan testified. They told her "that her children weren't meant for her, that she was meant to be alone," the detective said.Ram then went to the residence of her husband, Dinesh, retrieved the two children around 1:30 a.m. and brought them to her apartment."She was hearing voices and decided to give her daughter a bath," Kirtlan testified. She then "held her underwater for five minutes until she was lifeless," the detective said.Ram also told police she sexually abused the girl before she killed her, according to Kirtlan's testimony.Kirtlan said Ram told him in his interview the day of the killing "she was remorseful and would suffer all consequences for her action."Another detective at the preliminary hearing testified that Devan Ram witnessed the drowning death of his sister.The boy watched as "his mother put her underneath the water," Detective Ashley Englefield testified.Devan told police "that she breathed the water," Englefield said. "Those were his words. … Then he said she couldn't breathe and then she died.""He told me his mother told him that he would find his sister again in another time," Englefield said. 

 http://www.sacbee.com/2011/04/30/3590791/sacramento-mom-pleads-guilty-to.html#ixzz1LCuGtpon

FILICIDE (and suicide): India: Nidhi Gupta; Deepti Chauhan

April 28, 2011

Mumbai:  Wary of the negative impact of the spate of suicides in middle-class families, where mothers killed their children and ended their own lives afterwards, on the young minds, city schools are contemplating calling for a parent-children counselling sessions as soon as the institutes reopen. In the two recent incidents, three children -- aged 3, 5 and 7 years, respectively -- were killed by their own mothers who themselves committed suicide afterwards. The worry has been the collateral damage to those left behind.
Parents, particularly younger couples, are discussing the reasons and impact of this disturbing trend on their children. Purvi Gogri, parent of a student of Vissanji Academy School in Andheri (east), feels that it was not right for a mother to kill her child and commit suicide. "But sometimes financial pressure and problems at home can be very depressing and if the husband is not supportive than one feels very helpless."
With increasing depression and marital discord among couples, children become the vulnerable victim of their warring parents' ire. "It's almost scary. What sort of a social order are we creating, where people, driven to death, dare not leave their children behind for fear of what the rest of the world will do to them? But, parents have no right to end the lives of their own children." says Kalpana Raut, principal of a Virar school.
Ankita Mittal, a Std VIII student of Uttpal Shanghvi School, said, "I cannot imagine the plight of a 5-year-old boy who died last Saturday after his mother pushed him from the building terrace. It's hard to believe a mother can kill her own child. I am still shocked."
A little over a month ago, 32-year-old chartered accountant Nidhi Gupta threw her son (7) and daughter (3) down from the 19th floor of a Malad building, before jumping to death herself. A few days ago, in a similar incident Deepti Chauhan (32) hurled her 5-year-old son, Sandesh, from a seven-storey building and herself leapt to death in Dahisar.
Panicked by the incident Ritu Duggal, principal of Thakur Public School where Sandesh studied, has decided to have a meeting and counselling sessions with the parents of their students. Dr Mohini Paul, a child psychologist at Bandra (west), said, "Inflation is one of the major reasons for stress. In today's times, the expectation from women is a lot more. Today, a woman is not only expected to do household chores, but also make money to survive the growing expenses. Often, constant negative thinking, loneliness and depression lead to committing suicide."

http://www.ndtv.com/article/cities/wary-of-family-suicides-schools-consider-counselling-102017?cp