| Articles | |||||
|
|
|||||
|
|
|
|
|||
|
Parents Who Kill - Andrea Yates, Amy Grossberg, Brian Peterson, Melissa Drexsler, Christina Riggs Parents Who MurderInfanticide - Has been practiced on every continent by people on every level of cultural complexity, from hunters and gatherers to high civilization, including our own ancestors. Rather than being an exception, it has been the rule. Statistically, the US ranks high on the list of countries whose inhabitants kill their children. For infants under the age of 1 year, the American homicide rate is 11th in the world, while for ages 1 - 4 it is 1st and for ages 5 - 14 it is 4th. From 1968 to 1975, infanticide of all ages accounted for 3.2% of all homicides in the US. Many new mothers experience a mild depression called the baby blues. Postpartum blues usually begin 1 or 2 days after delivery and can last up to 3 weeks. These out-of-control feelings can add to anxiety and fear. Purephrial psychosis, the rarest form of Post Partum illness affects 1% - 3% of all new mothers, 1 to 3 cases for every 1,000 births. 70% of new mothers who suffer psychosis have no history of psychiatric illness. It is the most severe form of the illness and can cause a break with reality in the new mother. Is Garrett Wilson a loving father and a terrific husband? Or a relentless womanizer who murdered 2 of his children for insurance money? In 1987, Wilson's 5 month-old son, Garrett Michael, died. Missy Anastasi, Wilson's wife at the time, suspected foul play. But a medical examiner ruled that the baby had died from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Seven years later, Anastasi discovered that Wilson had secretly divorced her to marry another woman, and had another child. Convinced that Wilson was a killer, she asked police to look into her son's death. What they found shocked them. Can police gather enough evidence? Read Chapter 1 of Adrian Havill's gripping examination of the Garrett Wilson case.-- Part II - Part III - Part IV - Part V
Not without precedent -- There have been other filicide cases like that of Andrea Pia Yates. Courts nationwide have numerous examples of women of killing their children.
Louise Woodward,19 - Became so impatient with 8-month-old Matthew Eappen's crying that she shook him violently to quiet him. She slammed the infant against a hard surface (floor) to silence him. Eappen suffered a fractured skull and died from his injury. William and Denise Fischer of rural Westchester County, NY, hired Swiss au pair Olivia Riner, 20, to care for their infant daughter, Kristie. In December 1991, while they were at work, there was a fire in the nursery that killed the 3-month-old while she slept in her bedroom. She was charred beyond recognition. Riner, the only witness to the crime and prime suspect, made no attempt to save the burning baby. Flammable solvent had been poured around the baby and the bed of an adult stepsister who also resided in the home. Rine was acquitted though the despondent nanny, who had been in the US only 1 month, most likely committed the crime.
Why They Kill Their Newborns - 18-year-old college couple, Amy Grossberg and Brian Peterson, delivered their baby in a motel room, killed him and left his body in a dumpster. 18-year-old, Melissa Drexler, arrived at her high-school prom, locked in a bathroom stall, she gave birth to a boy and left him dead in a garbage can. Next: she touched herself up and returned to the dance floor. A grand jury indicted her for murder. New Jersey Prom Girl, Melissa Drexler and the McCaughey septuplets are two examples pointing to a culture of ambivalence in the US around the conception and care of children. In Los Angeles County in one year there were 10 newborns left to die; several summers ago, 3 were discarded in Southern California beach communities. In Monmouth County, NJ, where Drexler left her baby, there were 12 abandoned babies in the past 10 years. 4 New Jersey teenagers have abandoned babies in the past 6 months. How to ignore an attempted infanticide -After twin newborn girls were found dead in the pit of an outhouse October 9, 1994, Princeton RCMP launched a homicide investigation that continues today. "The autopsy determined they were alive when they were born," says Constable Ray Kinloch. "They probably died as a result of being thrown down the hole there and just left." In 1987, Mary Beth Tinning of Schenectady, New York, was convicted of killing one of her children. Prosecutors were unable to prove Ms. Tinning was responsible for the deaths of her eight other children, none of whom lived beyond age 5. She drove a school bus in Schenectady, New York. She even worked as a nurse's aide in a pediatric ward. But this seemingly normal woman killed her ninth child by smothering it and is suspected of doing the same to her other eight children--while escaping suspicion for more than a decade.
Between 1949 and 1968, Marie Noe had 10 children: 7 girls and 3 boys. Two of the children lived just one month. One died after 13 days, another after 14 months. Not one lived to see a second birthday. In all except two of the deaths, Mrs. Noe said the babies had died while sleeping when she was home alone with them. Eventually the deaths were blamed on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, also known as SIDS. Philadelphia investigators had been waiting for decades to hear Marie Noe, 70, admit she smothered 8 of her babies in the '40s, '50s and '60s. She made that confession in a small courtroom, pleading guilty to 8 counts of 2nd-degree murder, while Arthur, 77, wept in the gallery. From The New England Journal of Medicine: So starts the 1961 Journal article "Slaughter of the Innocents: A Study of Forty-six Homicides in Which the Victims Were Children" (L. Adelson. 1961;264:1345-49). The same themes of passion, corruption, and the death of sweet children reverberate through the pages of The Death of Innocents: A True Story of Murder, Medicine, and High-Stakes Science. In "How could a mother deliberately kill her child?" Psychologist Robert R. Butterworth, Ph.D. describing possible motivations about mothers who kill or abandon their babies.
Antepartum and Postpartum Depression Margaret G. Spinelli, MD - Women with antepartum depression have a risk of poor nutrition, substance abuse, and prenatal noncompliance. The 3 postpartum mood disorders: postpartum "blues," postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis are common. Education is an important instrument in the treatment of these disorders.
Pregnant teenagers - Need to know they are not alone and there are professionals willing to help them. Mothers suffering from profound depression - Differ from teens who kill their newborns and mothers who neglect or abuse their children. They often provide unheeded warnings and attempt suicide. Homicide trends in the US Infanticide - Homicides of children under 5 increased over the past 2 decades but declined recently.
Maryland Jury and Infanticide Discussion - A colonial jury in 1656 made up entirely of women which acquitted an accused Maryland woman of infanticide. A recent history of infanticide Infanticide Child-murder - According to the French Criminal Code the word is limited to the murder of the newborn infant. In English it has been used for the deprivation of life from the moment of conception up to the age of 2 or 3 years. Except under Hebrew and Christian law, the killing of very young children by their parents has been either legally permitted or practiced with impunity. Punishing
the Unfathomable When Mothers Kill - Justice System Faces Difficult
Dilemmas - More than 24 countries have laws standardizing the treatment
of mothers who kill children in the months after giving birth. In
the US, what happens to mothers who kill varies. One woman has been
executed for killing her children. Christina Riggs, admitted killing
her two children in 1998 during a failed suicide attempt, was put
to death in Arkansas last year. 8 other women sit on death row for
murdering their children Case Study: Female Infanticide - The phenomenon of female infanticide is as old as many cultures, and has accounted for millions of gender-selective deaths throughout history. It remains a concern in "Third World" countries today, notably the two most populous countries on earth, China and India. Female infanticide reflects the low status accorded to women in the world; it is the most brutal and destructive manifestation of the anti-female bias that pervades "patriarchal" societies. It is closely linked to the phenomena of sex-selective abortion, which targets female fetuses almost exclusively and neglect of girl children. Will
India's Ban on Prenatal Sex Determination Slow Abortion of Girls?
- 50 million women are "missing" in the Indian population. Generally
three principle causes are given: female infanticide, better food
and health care for boys and maternal death at childbirth. The situation
is similar in China and other Asian and Middle Eastern countries.
Prenatal sex determination and the abortion of female fetuses threatens
to skew the sex ratio to new highs with unknown consequences. Students Protest Princeton Professor Who Advocates Infanticide - April 1999 - More than 100 protesters denounced Princeton University for hiring a philosopher whose extreme views include allowing parents to end the lives of their severely disabled infants. The
Infanticide - Friedrich Schiller Kari
& Associates
Copyright Kari Sable Burns 1994-2006 |
True
Crimes Discussion List: e-mail: truecrimes-subscribe@googlegroups.com
Support his site with your purchases! The Complete Harry Potter Series!
The
Kennedy Curse: Why America's First Family Has Been Haunted by
Tragedy for 150 Years
Living History by Hillary Clinton Dr. Larry Milner,
Illinois physician and founder of the Society for the Prevention
of Infanticide, says as many as 10% of babies across all cultures
are killed by their parents. Milner, author of the book
Hardness of Heart/Hardness of Life, believes some
people have a genetic predisposition for infanticide. Out
of the Darkness: Postpartum Depression Is Not Something We Can Fight
Alone by Sheila MacDonald
|
