posted on November 23, 2004 06:47:37 PM new
For Pete's sake why was a woman suffering from post-partum depression--not to mention a history of schizophrenia--allowed to be alone with her child?!? Child Protection Services sure dropped the ball with their investigation of this family, too.
There had to have been prior signs that she was on the edge. The husband and their doctor should have taken steps to get her help AND protect the baby.
Mom admits cutting off baby's arms
Alleged murder similar to other Texas cases
Tuesday, November 23, 2004 Posted: 8:36 PM EST (0136 GMT)
DALLAS (AP) -- When a mother admitted killing her baby daughter by severing the child's arms this week, she joined a high-profile list of Texas women with histories of mental illness who have killed their children in gruesome fashion.
The state has had at least four similar cases in recent years. Andrea Yates drowned her five children in the family's Houston bathtub in 2001. (Full story)
Deanna Laney bashed her three sons' skulls with rocks last year, killing two and maiming a toddler. She said God told her to do it. (Full story)
A mother from suburban Dallas drowned her daughters last fall, and a woman in Brownsville is accused of helping her common-law husband behead her three children.
In all the cases, the women had some sort of mental illness in their past.
The killings have been brutal, but legal and psychiatric experts say such cases are no more common here than in other states.
They note that several factors have caused Texas to get more attention on the issue, including intense media coverage following the Yates case that may have created an illusion that Texas has more mothers killing children.
"Texas seems to be a lightning rod," said George Parnham, the Houston attorney who defended Yates. "I don't necessarily go with the idea that we're wackos down here."
Dena Schlosser, 35, was charged with capital murder Monday after calmly telling a 911 operator that she had cut off the arms of 11-month-old Margaret. Police found Schlosser sitting in her living room, covered in blood, a church hymn playing in the background.
Schlosser's husband, John, told an official with Texas' Family and Protective Services that his wife had referenced a Bible scripture the night before the killing and said she wanted to "give her children to God," according to an affidavit that led a judge to award the agency temporary custody of the couple's two older children.
Schlosser had a history of postpartum depression, a disorder that can occur in women after they give birth.
Her mental history and her 911 confession are similar to Yates. And the method Schlosser used shared the bizarre, brutal nature of Laney's rocks and Yates' systematic drowning.
"To actually sever the arms suggests something special was going on," said psychiatrist Phillip Resnick, who testified in the trials of Laney and Yates. "It suggests on its face that there was some specialized psychotic thinking, but you just don't know."
Yates, who had a history of schizophrenia and postpartum depression and said the devil prompted her to kill her children, was convicted of capital murder and is serving a life sentence. Laney was acquitted of capital murder by reason of insanity after psychiatrists agreed psychotic delusions kept her from knowing right from wrong.
Authorities discovered a grisly scene at the Schlossers' apartment.
An officer had to remove a knife from Schlosser's hand, according to a search warrant affidavit released Tuesday. The baby was found in her crib, both arms severed at the shoulder, and died at a hospital a short time later.
Authorities said the two older daughters in the family, ages 6 and 9, were at school when police arrived, and that their father was at work.
Schlosser had been investigated on child-neglect allegations this year, but Texas Child Protective Services had recently closed a seven-month investigation, concluding that Schlosser did not pose a risk to her children.
The Schlosser case will certainly add to the media attention on the issue. But DePaul University law professor Michelle Oberman, who has written extensively on mothers who kill their children, said Texas may be bringing some of the attention on itself with the way it prosecutes such cases.
"It gears up the criminal justice system for a death penalty prosecution, rather than approaching the cases as instances of profound mental illness," Oberman said.
____________________
"Bad temper is its own scourge. Few things are more bitter than to feel bitter. A man's venom poisons himself more than his victim." --Charles Buxton
posted on November 24, 2004 06:41:58 PM new
I think she needs to be taken home a caregiver be assigned 24 hours a day so that she can get some rest and then a good psychologist come and visit twice a day to help this poor woman understand what she has done, she doesn't deserve any kind of punishment, as when she realizes what she has done she will have this to relive the rest of her life. Good therapy 3 or 4 times a week will help and them of course getting her into a college so that she can better herself and be more proud of who she is.
posted on November 25, 2004 07:07:21 AM new
open your eyes said the master to the blind man!
Perhaps our twelvepole is implying in an oh-so sarcastic way, how wonderful it is a woman can murder a child via abortion (without the excuse of P/P/D, of course) because maybe she just doesnt want it; and thinks better of herself to have a professional career at the moment?
[Doing my best imitation of deniro in analyse this] " YoU, twelevepole, YOU>>>>"
posted on November 25, 2004 03:07:54 PM new
these people are sick,please dont give any excuse.besides the state is stretched,what kind of people can they dispatch to keep an eye on her?
remember Yates,her mother in law comes daily to help her!!
and go to college,WOW!! how about a cruise on QE II with Dr Sigmund Freud!!!!
These women should not have children or child.
-sig file -------Life is one big happy 'All You Can Eat' buffet .
posted on November 25, 2004 05:01:23 PM new
this seems to happen only in Texas..remember the woman that drowned her 5 kid in Houston a couple of years ago.
posted on November 25, 2004 05:06:47 PM new
yes,Yates is in houston,they said her shrink gave her the wrong antidepressant which made her hallucinate,my thought is that she hated her husband.
how can a woman hometutor 5 kids,fed them 3 times a day,bathed them and picked up after them and wash and clean and dress them and keep her hubby warm at nite??
women who felt they are trapped tend to look for someone to blame.
-sig file -------Life is one big happy 'All You Can Eat' buffet .
posted on November 26, 2004 10:52:29 AM new
i recall she either is not taking the pills or cant take the pills,but you would think the two can come up with some means of birth control!!
I also heard her father left her a trust fund.
Women who stay home and care for so many kids are isolated,the work never end,tomorrow is the same routine,dirty dishes need to be cleaned and clothes need to be washed and towels need to be folded and meals have to be prepared.
Many husbands do not realise how much work is involved.
Once an older woman i know was asked by a church to babysit 10-12 children so the young mothers can take time off to have lunch and shop,the women are expected to tip her at the end of the day(she gets no pay) and the total tips come to 18 dollars.
-sig file -------Life is one big happy 'All You Can Eat' buffet .
posted on November 26, 2004 02:09:15 PM new
may be this case can give us more facts when searching for a reason why these women kill their kids??
remember the case of a mother who locked up her kids in a car and drove that car into a lake,(not in texas)
and then told the police some guy kidnapped them??
well,she is divorced and working at Winn Dixie store and met this wealthy man who told her he does not want responsibility of other people's kids.
So how does she solve the problem-she killed her own kids so she could marry him.
-sig file -------Life is one big happy 'All You Can Eat' buffet .
posted on November 26, 2004 02:25:54 PM new
This is one topic I can't find words to contribute to, it is all to unnatural and beyond my comprehension. Not to mention that it makes my tummy queasy. Maggie
posted on November 26, 2004 02:58:04 PM new
Yes, it's really awful. And it's strange the way that society views such cases.
Many mothers who kill their children are considered "mentally ill" while fathers who kill their children are considered criminals. Why is there such a distinction? Women are sent to insane asylums and fathers are either jailed or electrocuted.
It's as if children are considered the property of mothers or extensions of mothers and for those reasons they are given special consideration by the media and courts when they decide to destroy their children. If, for example a woman murdered the neighbor's kid, it would be prosecuted as a crime without a doubt or special consideration.
posted on November 27, 2004 06:01:37 AM new
society does not view women as killers,so if they kill,they must be mentally ill.especially when they kill their own kids.
men come home from work and take it out on the kids as they are smaller and weaker,do you think women do the same,as kids are smaller and weaker??
-sig file -------Life is one big happy 'All You Can Eat' buffet .
posted on November 27, 2004 06:34:29 AM new
Maybe someday in the next couple million years society may be enlightened enough to realize that not ALL people were meant to have children.
Just because you can have children doesn't mean you should.
But the pressure is there, trust me, I know.
Conform, conform, conform.
Don't give it a thought that you may not be INTERESTED in raising children.
Never give a thought to how you're going to support them or who's going to take care of them and how you're going to pay the people who take care of them while you're working.
Don't give a thought to whether or not you want to come home from a long day at work and keep right on working to the point of exhaustion.
Don't give a thought to the fact that, unless you're wealthy, when you have kids YOUR life is over and you live for them.
Oh, and above all don't give a thought to how much it costs to have kids, just keep having them so the pressure and worry gets you to the cracking point.
And please skip the "children only need love" crap....they need food, a house, heat, electricty, education, clothes, school supplies, health care, gifts, obviously really expensive toys,and YOUR TIME!
But please let this be a big surprise to you AFTER you have them.
posted on November 27, 2004 08:10:22 AM new
I don't know Stop.. I think like Crow said, some people are not equipped to be a parent or be responsible for anyone other than themselves.
And sadly many people are so flawed that like Helen said, they are a danger to themselves and others. This applies to both Male and Female.
If we stopped to think about all of the mentally ill, or the drug addicts, or emotionally unstable, demented people among us.. we would be afraid to leave our homes..We may be the most intelligent species but we are the most flawed as well...JMHO. Maggie
posted on November 27, 2004 10:00:54 AM new "I don't know Stop.. I think like Crow said, some people are not equipped to be a parent or be responsible for anyone other than themselves."
That's so true.
Usually, the mentally ill aren't violent. They are a bigger danger to themselves than to others. Hundreds of people kill their children every year but the media focuses on sensational cases like this one when mental illness is suspected --leaving the wrong impression that only insane people kill their children.
posted on November 27, 2004 12:03:28 PM new
You're absolutely right, Crow. We've talked about this before and people get MAD if you tell them there are certain women who shouldn't have children when it's every woman's 'God-given right'. IMO, it's usually the ones that get the maddest who are the ones that shouldn't have children.
Helen's right. She should be locked up for life just because of the cruelty involved - whether she's ill or not.
posted on November 27, 2004 01:16:02 PM new
I get your point, Kraft, but I think that more than whether or not it's a "right" I think it should be a choice. Society, even now, does not present to women that child bearing is a choice .....that there's another choice.
I guess I'm saying(rather badly) that it should be your "right" not to have children, too.
I think this puts pressure on women(and men) to be parents when they just aren't parents. Raising children isn't a hobby that you can get bored with, put away, and come back to later and some people don't realize this until it's too late.
posted on November 27, 2004 03:20:57 PM new
That's true Crow, but are people that stupid that they don't realize having kids is an option? I don't have children and you wouldn't believe how many times I've been asked why not or if I have a medical reason for not having any. I've also been told that love is all you need to raise a child - how ridiculous is that?
posted on November 27, 2004 04:09:42 PM new
That means there's still hope for ya, Replay
Kraft, go back a couple of posts of mine and it addresses how "all they need is love"....ya, right.
Ha! I think I was in my fifties before my Mom gave up the idea I was going to have kids...it IS amazing the pressure you get and the blank look people have when you say you have no kids.
And then they assume you hate kids because you don't have any !!!
I have nothing against having children if you know what you're getting into...you owe that much to the kids!
