posted on July 11, 2002 06:21:16 PM new
I was just watching CNN and the prosecution in the case pinted out that she *knew* that if she left her kids in the car that way, that they'd die. Whnbile she got her hair done, a massage, rested with some chips and cold soda pop, her 3 year old and ten month old died in the car.
Although the judge decided that she was only going to be charged with a lesser offence of involuntary manslaughter, the proscecution states that they will challange that ruling because they have evidence to support their claim that she knew what she was doing.
So much for the theory that mom ws too stupid to understand what would happen in a hot, locked car all afternnon.
Unfortunately, this happens all too often and moms never get charged with first degree murder -- or at least, all the ones that I've heard of (plenty) never got charged with murder.
posted on July 11, 2002 06:27:32 PM new
The number of kids and pets that die each year in locked cars is appalling. The number of kids who die by drowning unattended in swimming pools is also sickening. What the hell are these people thinking?
posted on July 11, 2002 06:33:39 PM new
>>she got her hair done, a massage, rested with some chips and cold soda pop,<<
Clearly not a real mom, unless of course she happens to live in NYC's Upper East Side. I haven't done that complete list in 7 years.
(Which reminds me of a story: I used to work in a building that held a dance studio for children. One icy, slushy day, there is a woman, dressed in a full length fur, and a maybe 6yo girl, dressed like something off of a Bergdorf mannequin, complete with hat like Madeline's. The woman is trying to hail a cab, and the girl is pleading, "Mommy! Mommy!" The mother turns to the kid and snaps: "CAN'T YOU SEE I'M HAVING A BAD TAXI DAY?!!!" I seen this with my own eyes.)
posted on July 11, 2002 06:38:16 PM new
She wasnt TOO stupid. Instead of coping to her idiocy, she at first claimed she was kidnapped and raped and when she got back from "getting away", she found the kids dead. So, she had presence of mind to LIE, didnt she?
posted on July 11, 2002 06:46:44 PM new
Borillar, I moved here to Pa from Fl. It was constantly publicized not to leave kids and pets in cars. People still did. Even here in Pa, it is constantly repeated on the news whenever it gets hot to not leave kids and animals in cars. If the prosecution has the evidence to present that it was indeed planned, they should up the charges.
The police in Fl are alert to the dangers. My car broke down once on an extremely hot day, and a policeman had my 2 wait in the air conditioned squad car while I waited for the tow truck. There was no shade available. You have the right to an informed opinion -Harlan Ellison
posted on July 11, 2002 07:04:39 PM new
Where I live it's legal to smash the windows if you see an animal in a car when the temperature is above 80. I'd like for it to be legal to wait for the owner to come back and smash them.
posted on July 11, 2002 07:41:25 PM new
I htink that the state is Michigan. It was explained that in that state, if the prosecution can prove that mom was aware of what would happen if she left the kids in the car all afternoon (4 hours), then the charge of First Degree Murder is available.
Tell, you've been in a car when it's hot. do you sit in a parked car with the windows rolled up for hours while waiting for an appointment? Who does (and survives)?
Therefore, mom had to have known what would happen to the kids if she left them in the car long enough. She can't claim "ignorance" of the fact, as that claim is beyond absurd; yet, the judge-wudgie feels sorry for mom and will let her go free if he could. After all, its a WOMAN . . . and you know, they're nothing more than just Children themselves, etc. So, she couldn't be responsible. Besides - its a MOTHER! There's just no such thing as a MOTHER that could actually kill their kids in cold blood. What a judge!
posted on July 12, 2002 05:33:24 AM new
Leaving children (under the age of two) in a parking lot alone is negligence even if the atmosphere in the car is perfect.
And, it should be clear, even to an idiot, that leaving children in a heated car is abuse.
But, believe it or not, there are people so ignorant that they are not aware that leaving children and animals in a hot car will cause death.
It happens all over the country every summer. I don't know how any prosecutor can "prove" in this case or any other case, what the parents "knew".
posted on July 12, 2002 06:16:35 AM new
No one on this thread knows what evidence the prosecution has and whether that evidence comes from a credible source.
For example, prior to the event the woman might have commented to a friend how dangerous a hot locked car was. It's premature to judge how severely the woman should be punished unless one knows what the evidence is.
posted on July 12, 2002 06:25:00 AM new
Since then here in MI they have arrested another woman who left her 4 children in the car at the trendy and expensive "Somerset Collection" shopping center. She left the SUV running with the air on and one of the children was 10 years old but they still felt that was too young to wait unsupervised.
posted on July 12, 2002 09:25:22 AM new
I just wonder how hot the car was when Mom took the kids out to get in it to go on her little trip. Bet she turned the air all the way up or had the windows rolled all the way down.
Why is it that people only think of themselves? I know dumb question but all of the reports of children and animals left in a car during the summer just boggles my mind. there shouldn't have to be ads to remind them. Common sense should prevail. Of course, there's not much common sense out there but by golly if you are in hot weather then it should take only a drop of sense to figure that when you leave a living being in a car with the windows rolled up something bad is going to happen.
So assumably, here we have a mother with no common sense and a judge with no common sense.
Just like the case in Florida poor little kids in care of the state are missing.
All of these children have done nothing more than been born in innocence to idiots and taken into the care of of the big state whose employees are either too lazy to check on them or too inept or have another business going on the side having to do with children.
posted on July 12, 2002 09:59:49 AM new
I've seen more than my share of unfit parents - stupid as a rock and couldn't care less. "Ignorant - and Proud of It!" ought to be their bumberstickers! I've seen when a child is sick, the parents are completely at a loss as what to do and nearly kill their own kids trying to save them. Yet, not a one of them was unaware that leaving your kids in the car on a hot day with the windows rolled up would cause injury or death! THat doesn't even take common sense - even animals know better than that! That's like arguing that if you hold a small child under the water in a bathtub for several minutes that the mother wouldn't realize that it would cause injury or death to the child. "I was just washing him clean! I had to rinse him off!"
NO, to me, its an excuseable way to kill off your kids when they get to be too much of a burden and you can't bare to part with them to someone else's loving care.
I find it hard to believe that all of these deaths throughout this country and the world can all be causeed by parents trying to murder their children.
"Startling as this statistic may be, the safety experts uncovered something even more surprising. Deaths frequently occur in weather most people would characterize as warm rather than hot. When it is 80°F outside, the temperature inside a car can quickly soar over 100°F, warns the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Heatstroke occurs when the body's core temperature, the rectal thermometer reading, reaches
105°F
posted on July 12, 2002 12:56:17 PM new
I tend to agree with you Borillar. How would anyone know if a mom planned on leaving her kids in the car? A perfect crime? Because she made up the whole rape thing after she knew her kids were dead, it tells me she's capable of deviant thinking. I would think if it was a real tragedy to her, she wouldn't have time to think about herself but that's all she did was think of herself....before and after the crime.
posted on July 12, 2002 01:22:50 PM new
A perfect crime?...Leave your kids in a car until they are dead and spend 15 years in jail? That doesn't sound so perfect to me.
posted on July 12, 2002 01:36:17 PM new
I'm wondering how many of those kids, that were left to die in cars, were killed intentionally Helen. Maybe the number is small, but I think it would be hard to prove.
If Susan Smith left her boys in the car, in the sun, instead of drowning them, I think she would get a lighter sentence, if any at all. She could plead stupidity like all the others have.
I don't mean perfect in the sense there's no punishment, but a murder could be very well disguised as a tragedy, giving the killer a pretty light sentence compared to a murder conviction.
[ edited by kraftdinner on Jul 12, 2002 06:55 PM ]
posted on July 12, 2002 01:52:33 PM new
That sounds resonable Kraftdinner.
There is a lot that we don't know about this case. I am just having a problem believing that anyone would want to kill their own children.
The latest news is that a couple of years ago, this mother gave birth to a baby and put it up for adoption for a couple of months and then retrieved it.
posted on July 12, 2002 04:09:34 PM new
No one on this thread knows what evidence the prosecution has and whether that evidence comes from a credible source.
we do know that there are the bodies of 2 children she gave birth to and had custody of. We do know she was the mother. We do know where she was, and how long.
posted on July 13, 2002 04:55:44 AM newHelen, in a nation of over 300 Million people, there's 30 to 40 dots on your map."
You missed a few "dots", Borillar. If you try again, you will count 120 dots...as the note on the corner of the map indicates. And there are less than 70 million children (under the age of 18) in the US...not 300 million
Of course, even one "dot" is too many.
Helen
[ edited by Helenjw on Jul 13, 2002 12:37 PM ]
[ edited by Helenjw on Jul 13, 2002 12:41 PM ]
Janette Fennell, director of the San Francisco-based group KIDS 'N CARS, said such deaths are easily preventable. [b]But it's wrong to assume the parents responsible are negligent and uncaring, she said.
KIDS'N CARS...cited by CDC
KIDS ‘N CARS WARNS: PARKED CARS + YOUNG CHILDREN CAN = TRAGEDY
Over 530 Documented Child Deaths Occurred in 1990s to Present Because
Children Were Left Unattended In or Around Motor Vehicles.
KIDS ‘N CARS Urges Automakers to Change Design of Dangerous Power Window Switches; New Lifesaving Technologies Showcased to Prevent Child Deaths and Injuries
(WASHINGTON, D.C.) --- With school almost out and the summer season heating up, KIDS ‘N CARS warns adults that children left unattended in or around vehicles should be considered at risk.
“More than 530 children have died this way over the past decade and no one is keeping track-except for us,” said Janette Fennell, co-founder and executive director of KIDS ‘N CARS. “We know that our statistics are very conservative and understate the true magnitude of this problem; but we must take immediate action to try to stop these preventable and extremely tragic events.”
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced this week the results of a pilot study that examined 1997 death certificates involving non-traffic incidents (trunk entrapment, power windows, and heat related deaths in vehicle passenger compartments) which was the first such look at non-traffic incidents utilizing death certificates. “We are very encouraged that NHTSA is beginning to understand the magnitude of this issue and beginning to collect data about non-traffic, non crash vehicle safety issues”, said Fennell.
NHTSA also announced that they will adopt the KIDS ‘N CARS approach of utilizing newspaper reports and other unconventional methods for identifying non-traffic vehicle related incidents. KIDS ‘N CARS has been providing information to NHTSA using these methods.
Information provided by a project associated with KIDS ‘N CARS known as Trunk Releases Urgently Needed Coalition (TRUNC) led to a Federal Regulation mandating all vehicles manufactured after September 1, 2001, have an emergency trunk release installed inside of the car trunk. KIDS ‘N CARS today commended NHTSA for moving forward on this data collection expansion program.
NASA engineers who invented the “Child Presence Sensor” alarm demonstrated their new technology. Every year infants and small children die needlessly because they have been left in vehicles. “I wanted something that would serve as a second set of eyes and ears,” said principle inventor, William “Chris” Edwards of NASA Langley’s Laser Systems Branch. Edwards has small children of his own and had read about cases around the country where well-meaning parents had inadvertently left a small child in a vehicle with disastrous results.
While heat stroke is a primary concern during the summer months, unattended children can also get into serious trouble around vehicles in numerous other ways. KIDS ‘N CARS has documented an alarming number of child deaths from being run over by adults who are backing up a parked car in the driveway. “It’s not even summer, and we already have documented 18 deaths,” Fennell said. “These incidents absolutely rip your heart out because many times the person responsible is the parent or a close relative.”
Fennell cited numerous newspaper headlines of articles chronicling incidents of young children being backed over in driveway and parking lots already this year:
Maine, April 29, 2002, “Toddler killed when father backs car into him”
Colorado, April 28, 2002, “Infant’s legs, pelvis broken when father accidentally runs him over”
Texas, April 10, 2002, “Truck Hits, Kills 6-year-old boy”
Florida, April 8, 2002, “Boy run over by car in family’s driveway”
California, March 13, 2002, “Toddler Run Over, Killed in Driveway”
California, February 24, 2002, “Father’s Car Runs Over, Kills Son 1”
Indiana, February 10, 2002, “Child dies after being run over”
Dee Norton of Seattle, Washington, spoke of his 3-year-old only grandson who was killed when a diaper delivery truck backed over him in the parking lot of an apartment complex. “We all need to work together to protect little kids from being blindly backed over.” Norton lobbied for 4 years and finally won passage of “C.J.’s law” that now requires delivery trucks in the state to be equipped with rear crossview mirrors or electronic sensing devices.
KIDS ‘N CARS showcased several technologies that can prevent needless tragedies. The Donnelly Corporation (www.donnelly.com) demonstrated their automotive camera technology called “VideoMirrorÔ” with “ReversAidÔ” that gives drivers the ability to monitor children in the backseat while driving and virtually eliminate the blind spot behind vehicles when backing up. American Dealer Services (www.americandealerservices.net) demonstrated their “Micro 3 Bak-Talk” system that warns drivers of potential obstacles behind vehicles by indicating how far from an object the vehicle is, and Sense Technologies demonstrated their “Guardian Alert” vehicle back up safety technology. (www.sensetech.com)
Another serious threat to children left unattended in or around motor vehicles is power window strangulation. KIDS ‘N CARS today sent letters to the top three domestic auto manufacturers urging them to change their power window switches. Children are being strangled because of “rocker” power window switches. We are encouraging the domestic manufacturers to change the design to incorporate the “push/down and pull/up” technology available on most foreign vehicles. KIDS ‘N CARS also is requesting that all power windows incorporate auto reverse as another way to ensure children are not harmed.
To add another dimension to this issue, POP A LOCK through its Emergency Car Door Unlocking (EDU) program is rescuing thousands of children from locked vehicles every year. With as few as 107 franchise locations nationwide, they average between 12,000 and 13,000 EDU’s every year. They are also dedicated to assist efforts to keep children safe. POP A LOCK announced a new national partnership with KIDS ‘N CARS today that includes a donation program for people who would like to contribute to KIDS ‘N CARS important injury prevention work.
“It is very important to educate parents and caregivers about the dangers of leaving children unattended in or around cars,” says Terrill Struttmann, cofounder and director of KIDS ‘N CARS. Struttman added that Safeway eastern division will be adding safety messages to their weekly circulars and paper grocery bags to help people understand the dangers.
posted on July 13, 2002 06:40:30 AM new
Power window strangulation. I wonder, Borillar how many murderous parents are guilty of that horrendous act????
posted on July 14, 2002 11:41:16 PM new
a few years back there was a grandparent here that backed a pickup over a kid.
The child lived with lots of complications.
solar panels on the roof that automatically power a fan designed to lower temperature insdie the passenger compartment when inside temps reach 75 would not be a bad idea.
we do have to recognize that while the case in discussion here involves someone we like to slap. the fact is that sometimes people have accidents.
