Anyone want to take a bet that this family was Mormon or Catholic or some other hard-core religious breeders? Five kids, even after such a horrendous experience last time? Home schooling in spite of her troubles? I’ve got $50 bucks sez this woman was religiously pressured to keep having and home-schooling these kids. Either externally (the husband) or internally applied…it’s gonna all come back to religion.
I don’t know many people who are NOT damaged on some level. This is way beyond that, this is psychosis.
Are you kidding? The variances between people are HUGE. And if anything has taught us this, it’s the Internet.
Oh come on. She wasn’t on a rampage of killing for killing’s sake and her kids just happened to be the first targets available!
You are probably right there. And exactly how can we know how many “whims” she dismissed, ignored, fought back, before she finally DID give in?
As for the reports from the “anonymous police officers” about how the killing went down… I find them suspect at best.
Oh, and to the person who felt that chasing the oldest boy around the house displayed “malicious” intent…how do you figure? If indeed that is what happened, then all it says to me is that she was intent on catching him and killing him. There is no special element of maliciousness in the fact that she had to chase him down.
Possibly, Sterra, but this woman’s diagnosis was apparently for post partum depression, which is actually sparked by childbirth. I’m with Stoid on the WAG that this family had some sort of religious imperative to breed and home school.
I’m with Stoid as well. Homeschooling, 5 kids under 7 there’s probably some religious pressure here.
If she did this because of the PPD then it wasn’t the ordinary common variety of PPD, she’s crossed the line into psychosis. True psychosis is rare and different to PPD and it can involve delusion. There’s cases of mothers killing their babies because they think the baby is the devil.
What’s gone wrong with the poor family is the fools who left her alone with the kids. I’m betting the father’s ‘forgiving’ her because he realises his own culpability in the horror.
FWIW a friend of mine developed post partum psychosis after the birth of her first child. It was completely different to PPD which I’ve had after the birth of my two kids. She was in and out of hospital, never left alone with the baby and even with an incredible degree of support from family, friends and the hospital system she barely made it through. They never had any more kids in spite of being seriously Christian and hoping for a large family.
I also suspect that while I think no civilised society kills she will prefer death to the reality she now faces
oki doki.
here’s the score, as far as i can see it.
she SUFFERS from depression. not surviving, or living with, in her case i’d say definitely suffering from.
depressed people often commit suicide. horrible but true.
you are suicidal; and you thought the world was a terrible, horrible place and you didn’t want to live in it anymore.
AND IF YOU LOVED YOUR CHILDREN
might you not also feel that they should not suffer in such a world? might you not feel that YOU WERE PUTTING THEM OUT OF THEIR MISERY? THAT YOU WERE SAVING THEM?
i’m not saying that this is logical to a sane person, but it makes a hell of a lot of sense if you are depressed.
the logic of the mentally ill does not bear comparison with the logic of the sane. that is why legal penalties are different for them.
look up PPD in the psychiatry textbooks and you see 2 worst case scenarios. in the first you get murder because of the poor bonding between the mother and child, and in the second you get murder because of the reasons above.
so i’m guessing that this woman looks on her actions as mercy killing rather than murder.
insanity, like mental retardation absolves you not of the crime, but of the responsibility for your actions. she needs treatment, not punishment.
This is from a Salon.com article by a woman who suffered PPD:
Quote:
I couldn’t help getting a temporary mental illness. Neither can the other 400,000 American women who get postpartum depression each year. Or the schizophrenics of this world, or the manic-depressives or the borderlines or the psychotics. And the 1 percent of new mothers felled by postpartum psychosis certainly can’t help it. They can’t help it that their brain is diseased, just like I couldn’t. They’re just sick, sick people. People to be pitied.
I pity Andrea Yates. I hope she is treated, not imprisoned, as postpartum psychotic women in other countries are. She is a sick woman, not an evil monster.
She could have been me. Or you. Or your wife. She didn’t want to kill her children. No sane person would.
I try to reserve judgement on cases like this because they are so horrendous that I feel I couldn’t possibly understand all the emotions that would bring a person to these depths.
The husband seemed too glib during the extensive interview I saw on CNN last night, but perhaps the magnitude hadn’t hit him yet. I agree that it was bizarre that they would continue to have children after the PPD she encountered with the last one. There may be a religious belief as far as having ‘as many children as god allows’ - he alluded to this but I can’t remember the exact wording. The husband’s mother was present during the interview but didn’t speak. It appeared that she helped out with the children frequently and seemed to back both her son and daughter-in-law.
Unlike Susan Smith, she didn’t lie about a mysterious black man entering the house and killing them - she was very upfront about having commited the murders herself. I think I’ll sit this one out and see how it plays.
Yeah, I think that, too.
The kids all had biblical names (Noah, Luke, Paul, John and Mary). I heard one quote on TV that said they had decided when they got married to have as many children as God gave them. :eek:
Five kids in six years?
And she was homeschooling them? Geez, she was home all freaking day with these kids, with no apparent break. She suffered PPD after four, and then had another one. I feel sorry for her in a way…but that in NO way excuses what she did.
Very tragic.
She was on haldol. That is for treatment of psychosis. They knew before she ever killed her children that she was prone to psychosis or she would not have been on haldol. This is tragic, but please understand we are not talking about a woman who lost her temper. We are talking about someone who was most likely completely out of touch with reality. I don’t understand why a woman prone to post-partum psychosis was doing without someone there with her until the danger was past.
She was not an abuser that finally went too far. She is sick. Her husband has more compassion than most, I hope he finds comfort.
Indeed, that would seem to be the point. The act was so bold, so deliberate, there is no question that she ever had any intention of trying to hide or deny it.
If she were another Susan Smith, the obvious thing to do would be to set the house on fire.
Man, PPD is nothing to take lightly. I didn’t have it, but the ongoing sleep deprivation that comes with parenting (during infancy) and the inability to serve your own needs because an infant has no sense of waiting or understanding… It robs even the most stable person of a good portion of their equanimity. At any rate, I think it’s a no-brainer that this woman isn’t right upstairs. Either she suffers from some sort of psychosis, or she was so warped in her past that her parental instincts are royally screwed. Either way, something’s not right.
I agree that it’s a tragedy that a mom prone to PPD went through yet another pregnancy. But I’m not sure I can blame them until I know whether or not that was planned. In an interesting tie-in to, oh, about 6 GD threads right now, my friend was in the throes of PPD when their first daughter was 7 weeks old, and they found out they were pregnant again. She was still nursing, they used BC too, but it happened anyway. Pregnancy happens, even to depressed people. Even to people who don’t want another baby. My friends are very much pro-life, but they ended up choosing to abort. In no small part, it was because her doctor said “I would fear for your life if you had another baby so soon” (meaning he figured she’d be suicidal; they were having a hard time managing her PPD as it was). It was very hard for them to set aside their beliefs, but they did. Can you imagine how hard that was? Being against abortion, yet going through the process of voluntarily aborting a healthy fetus? They were able to deal with it. However, it wouldn’t be hard for me to imagine another family in the same situation who might believe another pregnancy is a gift or sign from god, and god wouldn’t send more than they could handle. They’d pray a lot and go ahead and have it. There’s no way they would abort. Even giving up the baby for adoption isn’t going to cure the PPD. Scoff if you want, but they’re just being consistent with their belief system. You’d think with the bum rap hypocrisy gets around here, that’d receive some understanding.
I had the same thought, of these people having a strong religious faith of some sort (based on the kid’s names) but I object strongly to the slurs about “breeding religions.” I mean, slam away, but I think it’s pretty small-minded and judgmental.
As for homeschooling, while it’s certainly more common among the more fundamental religions, it’s by no means a certain tipoff that a family is high on jesus. I have several friends who homeschool, and it isn’t because religious figures big in their life.
This was a total tragedy however you slice it. It’s even more depressing to have people trying to speculatively dissect the lives of this family to try to figure out how to lay the blame on more thickly. Mental illness is a disease, apparently bad enough to make people to monstrous things like this. Isn’t that enough?
All I really have to add is that the account of what she did, particularly with regard to the 7-year-old, is maybe the most disturbing, most haunting thing I have ever read.
When my mind even begins to think what that child experienced, his last moments trying to grasp why the person he probably trusted most in his young life was doing that to him … my eyes snap shut.
Such a verdict is possible in some states, but not in Texas. Here, she’s either guilty or not guilty by reason of insanity–and the latter is awfully tough to prove. Nevertheless, my gut feeling is that she’ll walk, unless she accepts a plea bargain. The crime here is so ugly, and so far against normal human nature, that I imagine most jurors would go into court with a presumption against sanity.
Were this an episode of Law and Order they would let her walk but bring charges up against the husband for reckless endagerment. I am not saying that is what they should do, I am just saying that is what the TV would do to inject drama into what it simply tragic.
Oh god, it just occured to me that somebody is probably all ready writing the TV movie for this.
Someone here suggested that the hubby is being so forgiving because he’s aware of his own part in all this, didn’t they? Because if no one did, I will.
The more I think about it (no more information added, I admit, just my imagination having a party in my head) the more convinced I am that he has something to answer for here. This woman should never have had a fifth child, and given the problems she was having, she shouldn’t have been homeschooling them. She needed some relief from them, not extra responsibility.
By the way, did y’all know that family services had been to the home a while back, checking on the kids because of her PPD?
This whole thing stinks.
Another prediction: she will become a * cause celebre’ * among a certain breed of feminists, decrying the pressures of motherhood and patriarchal religions. Or something similar.
I watched another story on this tonight and could only feel great sadness for the lives that were lost in this tragedy.
Five small children were drowned by a mother who appears to have been suffering from acute depression and psychosis. Psychosis is defined as : n. A mental disorder marked by derangement of personality, loss of contact with reality, and deterioration of normal social
functioning. -psychotic adj. & n.
These were not the actions of a sane person.
If the woman ever regains her sanity I can’t see anything that will help her to cope with her actions. She doesn’t need to punished.
The husband doesn’t appear to be understanding the reality of what has happened, he spoke as if his kids were still alive and well.
I agree that the father is obviously in shock. If something were to happen to my son, it would be a long while before I could cope with it enough to even talk about it. I can’t imagine the shock and the guilt that he must be going through right now.
Ouch. We dont call people who use the slaying of 5 innocent children as a useful propoganda tool “feminists”. We call them “deranged”. As a feminist and a mother, I would be no less than appauled to see this brought up as a defense against patriarchal religions. If she didnt want the responsibility of her religion, she should’ve explored other belief systems. To imply that all women are so weak-minded that they are just victims of their own religion both saddens and infuriates me.
Im not implying that she wasn’t weak minded. I just dont think it was because she was a woman.
It really is a tragedy… But what I dont understand is why we’re so lenient on people who’re insane? It doesnt make her children any less dead. And it doesn’t mean she’s any less of a threat to society. What if she -does- walk… and ends up pregnant again? What then?
I hope this doesn’t sound like I’m debating or what not, which I don’t want to do in this situation, but I do have a slightly different take on this. Dad was at work, making money and stuff so the kids could live. Likely he already feels guilty for leaving the kids with mom when she was so depressed. I sincerely hope he can even bear the weight of his own guilt. He was doing the best he could do under the circumstances. I myself don’t see him as guilty of anything. Nobody realistically expects their spouse to kill their children.
Stoid, they’re not making these things up for our amusement. They come from her statement. From cnn,
Emphasis mine. She chased that boy down the hall and dragged him back to the bathtub. This “kind and gentle, child loving woman” Held a seven year old boy under the water until he was dead. She had the strength to do this after doing it to four other children before him…
I figure by the definition of MALICE in merriam webster’s:
1: desire to cause pain, injury, or distress to another
was it an accident that all the kids drowned in the bathtub and were found covered with a sheet? Or did SHE PLAN ON IT?
2 : intent to commit an unlawful act or cause harm without legal justification or excuse
When she was chasing her son down the hall was it so she could hug him or commit an unlawful act? He wasn’t ‘caught in the line of fire’ of a madwoman, he was chased down and murdered.
I understand that PPD is a real, serious issue and affliction. I do NOT believe that it should be presented as an excuse for her or her husband to use so they can go on having children and living in a world outside of prison.
On a side note. This story scares me to death. As a woman who plans on having children, how do I know I won’t go crazy like this? How do I know I won’t get PPD? I get seriously affected when it’s cloudy for three days straight. I don’t know. I wish there was some predetermining factor.
I read this story the day it happened. I just sat at my desk at work, in total shock. Later that day I happened to catch the news, they showed video of the children playing at a birthday party last Saturday. I sat on my couch and cried. Those children didn’t do anything wrong.
As a mother, I -cannot- understand why someone would hurt their children like this. If my son so much as leans over the bathtub and seems like he’s going to slip in, I am right there holding onto him to make sure that he doesn’t fall in.
She killed them, one by one, then after chasing the terrified oldest child and dragging him to the bathroom, drowned him next to his already dead 6 month old baby sister.
The terror in those children’s minds. Children trust unequivicly (I apologize for the mispelling). The depend on their parents for care and love and to spend the last few moments of your young life having that betrayed is so horrifying, that its almost unimaginable.
This woman can plead insanity, but its not going to make a bit of difference. She had to -plan- this out, had to think about what she was about to do as she filled up the bathtub and had to think about what she had done as she laid her children, one by one, on the bed and covered them up. There is no way she’s insane enough to stand trial, that’s flat out premeditated. End of fucking list.
Frankly, I’m pro-death penalty and think that she should recieve it. However, I think that lethal injection is way too kind for the betrayal of her children’s trust by killing them.
I think that she should be chased through the same house by her own mother, drug back to the same bath tub and drowned in it by -her- mother’s hands so that she can die knowing the same terror and betrayal that her children felt in their last moments.
Four days later, I’m still seething to no end about this. There are two things that still really get me:
1: If she was so very depressed like she and her family claim she is/was, WHY was she left alone with the children. There should have been SOMEONE there to help her so that she could cope. 5 children is alot to take care of in itself, to do it and be depressed can seem like an insurrmountable task.
2: The father feels sorry for her. If I were in his shoes I’d be first in line for seeing her take the injection. She killed his children for christsake.
There was a man here in Phoenix, who set his 2 year old daughter on fire and stood there and watched her die. It was so very cruel, like with this mother and 5 children, that he did this.
The thing was, I knew this man, the baby’s mother and I had actually held that child in my arms about a year and a half before. Given her a bottle, made faces at her. She was a beautiful baby.
When this happened my best friend and I were ready to find him and set -him- on fire. Later, as an afterthought, I realized that nothing in his manner said he’d so something so hideous. He was a little depressed sometimes, but we never new.
The moral of my long story:
If someone who has a child seems a little depressed, give them a hand. They may never go to the extreme of hurting their children, but being supportive to that depressed parent can make a world of difference in a child’s life anyway.
-Kat
PS: I do think she’ll plead insanity, but I don’t think the jury will buy it-- she’ll get the death penalty anyway.
Oh yeah, and I did suffer from post partum depression too AND I had an unsupportive spouse during and after pregnancy. My child is alive, happy and the biggest joy of my life.
Since I posted that I had read the info about it. At the time it was first posted, it was only a leak from an anonymous cop.
Which indicates what, exactly?
I’m sorry, I still fail to see how you make the connection between the fact that she chased her son and any indications of malice. You don’t know that she had any desire to cause pain, injury or distress. All you or any of us know for sure is that she killed her children. The underlying feelings, fears, or beliefs which would at least explain whatever twisted thinking justified this act for her, are still completely unknown to us and may remain so. For all we know (and this has actually been the case) she believed her children were possessed by the devil and she was saving humanity. She may have believed that her children were going to be possessed by the devil, and the only way to save them would be to send them to heaven NOW, before he got to them.
You simply do not know what was in her heart. The fact that the children suffered may have been. to her, a deeply unfortunate side effect of a much higher purpose. Her intentions are a mystery to you and to all of us at the moment, beyond her intention to end their lives.
(Just as a “Think about it” - if you were, let’s say, a Jew in a ghetto in 1942, and the SS was standing in front of you, getting ready to deliver your children into the hands of Dr.Mengele for hideous scientific experiments and you have a gun in your pocket. There are 12 SS guys, you, and your kid. You have two bullets. Who do you shoot? I tell you who I’d shoot: my kid. Better a quick death from me than torture at the hands of the Nazis. I posit that this woman was facing a similar choice in her own mind. Hardly malicious.
And here’s another one: many slaves were known to kill their children when they were born, rather than rasie them into a life of slavery. Malicious? I don’t think so.)
Did anyone here see “The Rapture”? In it, Mimi Rodgers plays a woman converted to Christianity who loses it. She believes that the rapture is going to happen, and to cut a long story short, ends up thinking she has to “send” her daughter to heaven, and shoots her. This could be a very similar situation.
We, or really the judge and jury, since we have nothing to do with it, need to separate the fact that the killing of these children horrifies us and judging why the person who did it, did it. There is a reason that insanity is a defense.
