To be clear here, her kids had evidently been dead for several days. They didn’t die while she was passed out, they died while she was on a long, long bender. If she didn’t know her kids were dead, it wasn’t because she was unconscious when they died, it’s because she hadn’t even looked in the bassinet next to her bed for a few days.
A fine distinction, maybe, but it’s not like it happened while she was sleeping.
She knew the baby was dead. She’s admitted it; she found him, covered him with a blanket, and went back to her booze without calling anyone.
Booze ruined her relationship with her 4 oldest children who live with her father.
Booze fueled the relationship with the father of these 3 children, who she once accused of raping her, yet went on to reproduce with two additional times.
Booze is the one overriding constant in this woman’s life. There were 307 beer cans in the bedroom where she was found.
After the 20th or 30th or even 50th she probably still had enough capacity to call someone and say “take the kids.” She didn’t.
She covered her dead baby with a blanket and went back to drink some more.
I’m looking for compassion, I’m looking for a shred of any kind of feeling for this woman, but it’s not coming.
As a recovering addict, I do feel compassion for the pain she went to great lengths to drown. That’s pretty much where it ends.
And I’m sure that in many of those contacts, her going to AA was suggested. Probably strongly suggested. Possibly mandated at some point her life, although the article dosen’t say. Help was offered to her many times that we know about. Had she gone to AA meetings, there would be a multitude of people to help her.
She had a choice. She made it.
If she wanted to quit using and asked my help, I would give it. But I think she should get the maximun penalty the law allows.
Nevertheless, it’s still possible that the kids died while she was passed out on one bender. Then she woke up and found the baby dead, so she went on another bender because that’s her way of coping with things - and another, and another.
That’s how it works when booze is your answer to everything. Your bills come in and you can’t pay them all? You get drunk. You find your kid dead? You get drunk. Depressed that you drink too much? You get drunk. Wilfulness doesn’t come into it.
Of course I have a brain. It enabled me to read the update and process the information that she found her newborn dead, covered him with a blanket, and called no one.
Look, I’ve experienced first hand a family member with a drinking problem. I’ve seen the devastation and the pain and the broken trust. This woman gave birth to those children. She was responsible for their welfare. Instead, she got drunk enough to stun a herd of oxen. I will spend my compassion on those who are hurt, not the ones who do the hurting.
Incomprehensible.
There was food a’plenty, and she allowed her children to starve to death amongst it.
Outrage has replaced any sympathetic consideration I might have ever had for this woman. Would I, fivce years from now, wish this woman torment and anguish?
I think… Yes.
Yes. And apparently there WERE people who were capable of helping her–the grandmother, even the boyfriend who was trying to reach her–and all she had to do was pick up the phone ONCE and say she couldn’t cope. The biggest boy could probably talk–she must have ignored him pulling at her, begging her…I can’t go on.
As has been pointed out by a couple of posters, there are limits to what a CPS caseworker can do. And those limits seem to tighten as time goes on and activists for one cause or another seize on an issue that twists their knickers.
I (vaguely—it was in the early- to mid-80s) recall a time when religious ultra-ultra-conservatives were accusing DSHS in general and CPS in particular of having an “agenda” of breaking up families whenever they could, presumably so that children could be taken from their parents and (I assume) sent to state indoctrination camps and raised up as athiest. Or something like that. What I do distinctly recall, though, is hearing one of their spokesbeings refer to CPS caseworkers as “jack-booted thugs”—a favorite term of the Patriot movement, usually applied to the ATF.
The Legislature’s response? They slapped more restrictions on CPS, specifically mandating that families be kept together. Among other things, this contributed to the death of Eli Creekmore, a 3-year-old who was removed from his home a number of times after being beaten by his father, but always returned because regulations required it. Eventually one of the beatings was fatal, and CPS was hung out to dry amid much public wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Personally, I have a slight amount of compassion for the woman (I grew up in an alcoholic family, though nothing close to this), but mostly I reserve my compassion for the dead and the fortunate(?) survivor. Similarly, most of my disgust goes to the breeding machine (sorry. I can’t call her a “mother”); but I reserve a good deal for the fucktards who make careers of castigating professionals who, in the face of bureaucracy, apathy, and overwhelming caseloads, are genuinely trying to improve the lives of those under their care. And a final dollop for the spineless politicos who can’t find the guts to tell the fucktards that they have worms in their heads.
If you were awakened by the police in your own home would you head for the booze first thing instead of finding out why they were there?
I, too, grew up in an alcholic family. Yet, amazingly, none of us were neglected to death. Nor even to serious bodily harm.
Compasion for this woman? Not after reading that last update.
Agreed, that CPS often works under horrific and heart-breaking restrictions and conditions. Sometimes, though, CPS does have a guilty role in the horrors that occur. In this case, I think they probably are almost entirely without blame.
Evil Death, it’s indees quite possible the kids died while she was on a drunk. But they didn’t go quickly. It’s not like “I got drunk and whoops! my kids died!”
I do feel terribly pity for her. I also want her to fully understand what she’s done, and live with that knowledge for a long, long time.
Sorry to answer a question with a question, but why do you think she would be compos mentis when woken after a ten day bender?
In other business: A number of people seem to have acquired the strange idea that I’m on this woman’s side. I’m not. I think she should be shoved into a sanitarium for a few years, dried out, and never allowed to see her surviving kids again. The only thing I’m saying in her defence is that she didn’t let her kids die because she was evil, which appears to be the contention of ivylass et al - or at least I hope it is, because anyone who would wish pain and suffering on someone who they don’t believe to be evil should leave decent people be and go back to masturbating over their authentic Ilse Koch lampshade.
Beyond that, I don’t care. Just keep it in proportion.
Sadly, that effectively makes you “on the womans side.”
Kinda harsh. Not sure what your standard for “evil person” is. I’m sure you’re not suggesting that she hasn’t done evil things?
I don’t know. IMHO, evil requires consciousness and intent. This woman’s “bad deed” was that she was not conscious. Literally. Do get epistemological about it, can you consciously do (or not do) things unconsciously?
Is she one of the most irresponsible and careless people who ever lived? I put her in the top ten. But evil? Nah.
Point one:
307 beers cans. Those beers were not consumed whilst unconscious, ergo, she had the capacity to have fed her children whilst she was drinking, if not when she was unconsious. Hell, the feeding of her children wouldn’t have even seriously interfered with her drinking. (As I know from personal childhood experience of having been fed by a falling-down drunk).
Point two:
She knew one of her children was dead, but took no action to assure the survival of the other two, upon making that discovery.
Conclusion:
Utter and depraved lack of concern for the wellbeing of her children.
That is evil.
You wouldn’t say a drink driver who plowed up a bus queue was evil, even if he did it trying to escape from the police who breathalysed him. You’d say he was a stupid, irresponsible asshole who should never be allowed to drive again, wouldn’t you? Well, this is no different except it hit the “kid” button and you’re all overreacting.
This may not come across clear as I’ve a bytch of a headache, but I’ll give 'er a shot anyway.
The difference in this case is that the kids suffered terribly before they died. They died of malnutrition and neglect. If she’d run them over with her car after a night of the stuff, it’d be a bit different. She ignored them for days (alive and dead) in favor of having 307 beers.
Bit of a difference there.
I’m still coming back to the issue of her being too drunk to notice the whole time. Nobody is addressing this point, preferring instead to duck back behind “She ignored them! She’s evil!”
Also, does anyone have a cite for all those beers having been consumed in the course of the ten-day bender? Unless US beer cans are much smaller than UK cans we’re talking about a daily fluid consumption of three or four gallons here. I’m no expert, but wouldn’t you drown from the inside drinking that much?