R.I. mother to serve 20 years in daughter’s death (Article )

[crystal8080]

Such a terrible terrible story. Yes, support was needed. Maybe with the right support this could have been avoided.

And although I know this will probably turn into a **** slinging contest, but I agree that you cannot physically force someone to take a bath or take meds.

And before you ask I worked with a youth with many behavioural/mental issues, and if he did not want to have a shower we did not go out. Or he would lose other privileges. If he didn't want to take his meds he risked going back to the hospital, if he ran away he knew the cops would come for him. There are ways to handle this stuff without forcing his or her hand.

[Sandy4957]

Ginnie, I suspect the mother's attorney (who is a public defender according to the article) was trying to claim that the mother didn't intend to kill the child, and that the mother sat on her and covered her mouth to "quiet" her. That could take the case out of the "murder" realm and put it into the "manslaughter" realm, which would likely reduce the sentence.

As untenable as that defense may have been, it's probably all that the attorney had to work with (and it's likely, in my experience anyway, that that's what the mother told the attorney). I've never defended a homicide case like this, but I've defended women who did some pretty awful stuff to their own children, and it's not uncommon to hear some pretty major rationalizations like that.

I wonder if the mother realized that she could conceivably stop the kid from breathing just with her own weight on the kid's chest.

Pretty awful stuff...

[Joker_Girl]

If she was at such a bad place she should have asked for help. Ive been at bad places, i didnt ever want to hurt my kids, but i have been so depressed and at the verge of a nervous breakdown that i couldnt stop crying, throwing up, and have been suicidal. I attempted it once.

Here about 6 months ago, i visited that ugly place again. Our son was moved back in with us, wouldnt go to school or work, got in a wreck, drunk all the time, disrespectful, trashing the house. Alot of bad stuff happened. I was feeling dangerous and unsafe to be alone. My husband chose to go to cards that night and leave me alone. Another of my friends chose to go out drinking. So my other friend took me home. She said she saw the look in my eyes, dead and out to lunch. It scared her. I stayed there three days, slept on the couch, cried, did drugs (yes i know its wrong), and didnt eat anything, losing 10 lbs. I wanted to die, i didnt know what i wanted, but i wanted the pain to stop. If i had been left alone i would have likely tried to kill myself. I wasnt thinking right. But my friend saw it.

How come no one saw this mom was losing it and stepped in?

How come she didnt know she was losing it and reach out for help?

And i hate to say it, but sometimes, you have to darn near force kids to do stuff like eat, take a bath, brush their teeth, comb their hair, and not wear the same clothes all week. Im not saying hold them down and beat their *** (although ive beat some *** myself), but you have to make it where not doing what you want them to has such unpleasant consequences that they will learn to obey. I used to yell at the kids to clean their room and pick up their wash. They would throw all the dirty and clean clothes on the floor and walk on them. So we had a consequence. Both of them had three shirts, three pairs of jeans, three underwear, and three pairs of socks. Til they could earn the right to have a wardrobe. They lost their toys for the same kind of crap. I just put clothes/toys/whatever in a tote and put it in the garage. Our daughter refused to eat anything that was meat or a vegetable, choosing only easy mac and hot dogs. She lost the right to have any sweets. You have to make sure you have the upper hand without being mean. That is how they learn to be respectful (not that it worked well whatever i did!), pick up their clothes, eat their food, and listen when you tell them, "hey! running in the street is dangerous! There was a semi on the street! i guess you lose your ball if you cant keep it out of the street."

And i was a softie compared to a lot of people! I rarely smacked my kids butts. I screwed up one time and we had a mural in the front room and i decided we needed one in the kitchen. So i made one. I was like 4. I thought it was beautiful. I got my butt BEAT. With a hairbrush. Freaking HURTS.

[Fortune]

Originally Posted by crystal8080

Such a terrible terrible story. Yes, support was needed. Maybe with the right support this could have been avoided.

I've looked into a lot of similar cases in the past. While people are quick to grant the "not enough support" rationalization, it is often simply not true. Tracy Latimer and her parents had tons of support, and Tracy's father had just turned down an offer to put Tracy in an even better facility than she was in at the time, and he murdered her anyway. Because sympathy always seems to go straight to the parents in these cases, the Canadian press characterized Robert Latimer as having committed a mercy killing because he lacked support, etc.

In short, you really don't know how much support this woman had, and such a reason doesn't begin to explain her actions in killing her own daughter.

Truth is, something similar could have happened with a neurotypical child (and has) and people are not quick to make excuses for them. If anything, people really hate parents who harm their own children. Except when the children are disabled, and then parents almost become suffering martyrs who ran out of options.

[Fortune]

Originally Posted by Sandy4957

I wonder if the mother realized that she could conceivably stop the kid from breathing just with her own weight on the kid's chest.

Pretty awful stuff...

Imagine what it must have been like for the child: Her own mother, someone who is supposed to care for her, protect her, and keep her safe, violently turning on her. She must have been terrified.

(I'm not calling you out on anything here, Sandy, just to be clear. I wanted to mention the child's perspective, because that practically never comes up when this kind of thing happens)

[MentalNomad]

.....

[Marspider]

Like Fortune, I too am concerned about the not enough support rationalisation. Committing murder is difficult for most people and taking that step is quite drastic. Mental issues are not an excuse for murder especially in this case. It's one thing to lash out and hit too hard, and another thing to deliberately strangle them. Strangulation is more deliberate. I feel this is adding to the stigma of mental health. With cases like these, people continue believing that all people with mental disorders are unstable and could flip out at any time. Even most people with schizophrenia (the really media unfriendly one) are not violent and are more likely to have people be violent towards them than be violent.
And then all murders are then rationalised away as that person had a mental problem, that's why they killed someone.

Originally Posted by Fortune

I've looked into a lot of similar cases in the past. While people are quick to grant the "not enough support" rationalization, it is often simply not true. Tracy Latimer and her parents had tons of support, and Tracy's father had just turned down an offer to put Tracy in an even better facility than she was in at the time, and he murdered her anyway. Because sympathy always seems to go straight to the parents in these cases, the Canadian press characterized Robert Latimer as having committed a mercy killing because he lacked support, etc.

In short, you really don't know how much support this woman had, and such a reason doesn't begin to explain her actions in killing her own daughter.

Truth is, something similar could have happened with a neurotypical child (and has) and people are not quick to make excuses for them. If anything, people really hate parents who harm their own children. Except when the children are disabled, and then parents almost become suffering martyrs who ran out of options.

[Fuzzy12]

there are no excuses for killing a child but there might be reasons. It's the reasons that have to be looked at to prevent these killings. Anyway the mother has got the rest of her life to live in this hell she has created for herself. I feel sorry for everyone involved. Especially the dead girl.

[Fortune]

I suspect one of the major reasons that it happens is because coverage of such murders is often about establishing sympathy and excuses for the parents - sympathy and excuses that a lot of people are quick to not only accept, but repeat about those cases and any further cases that come up.

After Tracy Latimer's father was in the news for murdering her, and characterized as having committed a "mercy killing" despite being in direct contradiction to all of the facts about Tracy Latimer's life, such murders have increased in Canada while homicide statistics in general have gone down.

I don't feel sorry for the mother at all. No compassion, no sympathy. I can't understand why anyone would.

Also, this article on Psychology Today about something called "a wolf pack mentality" toward disabled people.

[Fuzzy12]

Originally Posted by Fortune

I suspect one of the major reasons that it happens is because coverage of such murders is often about establishing sympathy and excuses for the parents - sympathy and excuses that a lot of people are quick to not only accept, but repeat about those cases and any further cases that come up.

After Tracy Latimer's father was in the news for murdering her, and characterized as having committed a "mercy killing" despite being in direct contradiction to all of the facts about Tracy Latimer's life, such murders have increased in Canada while homicide statistics in general have gone down.

I don't feel sorry for the mother at all. No compassion, no sympathy. I can't understand why anyone would.

Also, this article on Psychology Today about something called "a wolf pack mentality" toward disabled people.

I don't think that not publizising these kinds of stories wouldn't bring the murder rate down (though it would help if the media could be more objective and less sensationalist). There are crimes for which there is very little public sympathy and those crimes haven't really reduced in number either. What does seem to prevent crimes and reduce the murder rate is support and understanding.

I feel sorry for the mother because I can empathize with her. I don't know exactly what she must be feeling and thinking but I can't imagine that she is in a very happy place right now. It seems that she hasn't been in a happy place for a long time.

She knows she killed her daughter. She knows that because of her someone is not alive anymore. That's not something that is easy to live with. Not only does she have to deal with the consequences of her actions, but more importantly she has to deal with the loss of her daughter and that she is responsible for this loss.

Of course, this is all just conjecture. I don't know what she is thinking and feeling. Most of us were brought up to believe that taking another human's life is wrong. Most people don't kill easily and when it happens in an outburst of emotion rather than being premeditated, I think that most people regret it or at least feel very strongly about it. Guilt is a horrible emotion. It can drive you insane.

I don't condone what she did or any murder for that matter. I'm not talking about blame or responsibility but just emotions. I don't like the idea of anyone hurting. I feel for the victims but I feel for the perpetrators too.

[Fortune]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy12

I don't think that not publizising these kinds of stories wouldn't bring the murder rate down (though it would help if the media could be more objective and less sensationalist). There are crimes for which there is very little public sympathy and those crimes haven't really reduced in number either. What does seem to prevent crimes and reduce the murder rate is support and understanding.

How did you get from "publicizing this one story as a mercy killing preceded an overall increase in caretakers murdering the disabled people they were responsible for" to "not publicizing these stories would bring the murder rate down?"

It has nothing to do with publicizing them. It has everything to do with how they're presented. The stories offer excuses for caretakers, many of which tend to have nothing at all to do with reality.

Here is a blog post that discusses the specific situation I posted about. As I stated, while the overall homicide rate in Canada declined, the murder of disabled children increased after the Tracy Latimer story was presented in a particular way - that is, to promote sympathy for her father's decision to commit premeditated murder. This is in direct contradiction to your statement that other crimes haven't really reduced in number. I was not arguing from feeling or emotion, but rather from facts I have studied because this particular topic is fairly important to me.

Researchers on violence have widely accepted the notion that cultural attitudes and beliefs are powerful influences on the frequency and nature of violence (e.g., Belsky, 1980; Sobsey, 1994; Petersilia, Foote, & Crowell, 2001). The effects of public opinion and expert statements that altruistic filicides are sometimes justified would be expected to have the greatest effect on parents in most similar circumstances.



It could be expected to influence homicides of children with disabilities more than other children, filicides more than other homicides, fathers more than mothers, and Canadians more than Americans. If widespread public approval for altruistic filicide does produce negative consequences for children in Canada, we might expect to see four trends since 1994 when the first Latimer trial occurred: (1) the occurrence of one or more "copycat homicides," (2) an increase in filicides relative to the national homicide rate, (3) an increase in filicides by fathers relative to filicides by mothers, and (4) these effects occurring in Canada but not in the United States. All four have occurred since Latimer was killed in 1993 and massive publicity was given to the case in 1994.


Three days after the first Latimer trial, Gloria Christianson alerted Ontario Social Services that her friend Cathy Wilkieson was distraught and talking about killing her 16-year-old son. Ryan Wilkieson also had multiple disabilities, though less severe than Tracy Latimer's. According to Christianson, the media coverage of the case had a profound effect on this depressed mother. Less than two weeks later, Cathy Wilkieson killed her son and herself in their car with carbon monoxide (Sobsey, 1995).


Although the Canadian homicide rate in general has declined to its lowest level in 30 years, there has been significant increase in filicides (Fedorowycz, 2000) that coincide with the positive publicity for justifying filicides provided by the Latimer trial. Between 1994 and 1998, the number of children under the age of 12 murdered by their parents increased by 45% to 7.1% of all homicides in Canada (compared to 4.9% for 1974-1983).



This sharp increase followed a decreasing trend from 1974 through 1993. A Royal Canadian Mounted Police report provides similar but slightly different data. They report the number of Canadian children killed by parents or guardians for each year from 1990 to 1998. From 1990 to 1993, the average number was 31.75 per year (range: 33-37). From 1994 to 1998, the average number jumped to 49.0 (range: 45 to 62/ year).



This represents an increase in filicides of 54.3% during a time when the overall homicide rate in Canada dropped 14.5%. If we expected the murders of children by their parents to drop along with the general homicide rate rather than stay at the 1990-1993 rate, the effective increase would be more than 69%. This translates to between 18 and 22 more murdered children each year between 1994 and 1998.

I feel sorry for the mother because I can empathize with her. I don't know exactly what she must be feeling and thinking but I can't imagine that she is in a very happy place right now. It seems that she hasn't been in a happy place for a long time.

She knows she killed her daughter. She knows that because of her someone is not alive anymore. That's not something that is easy to live with. Not only does she have to deal with the consequences of her actions, but more importantly she has to deal with the loss of her daughter and that she is responsible for this loss.

She paid her money and took her chances, as a friend of mine likes to say. She could have made a very easy choice and not murdered her daughter over a frakking bath.

Of course, this is all just conjecture. I don't know what she is thinking and feeling. Most of us were brought up to believe that taking another human's life is wrong. Most people don't kill easily and when it happens in an outburst of emotion rather than being premeditated, I think that most people regret it or at least feel very strongly about it. Guilt is a horrible emotion. It can drive you insane.

Then that's guilt she'll have to live with, assuming she actually feels guilty.

I don't condone what she did or any murder for that matter. I'm not talking about blame or responsibility but just emotions. I don't like the idea of anyone hurting. I feel for the victims but I feel for the perpetrators too.

I don't like the idea of anyone hurting, either, but I find it rather disturbing to go on at length how terrible a murderer must feel. When I think of the girl's murder, I think of the people who actually knew her and cared about her and how they are dealing with their loss, and I think about what it was possibly like for the girl to have her own mother smothering her to death. I don't care enough about the person who is responsible for her death to spare any sympathy.

It's like a script almost. If a mother murders her presumed healthy and neurotypical children - or in some cases, inadvertently causes their deaths - people have no sympathy and want her blood. If a mother murders her disabled children, people rush to make excuses for her, to find ways to mitigate her responsibility for the crime, and talk about how awful things must be for her. Actually, the same is true of fathers who kill.

[qanda]

Many kids with bipolar refuse to takes baths, brush teeth, etc. I wonder if this girl had a mood disorder. When my daughter felt really bad emotionally I did not make her take a bath. There's always swimming, or baby wipes, spray to freshen the hair. A 2 hour tantrum over a bath is not a battle I am willing to fight. I really wonder if there was more than Adhd. So sad for this little girl that she did not have a stable mom.

[Fuzzy12]

Originally Posted by Fortune

How did you get from "publicizing this one story as a mercy killing preceded an overall increase in caretakers murdering the disabled people they were responsible for" to "not publicizing these stories would bring the murder rate down?"

It has nothing to do with publicizing them. It has everything to do with how they're presented. The stories offer excuses for caretakers, many of which tend to have nothing at all to do with reality. .

Apologies, I misunderstood you. I haven't heard of the Tracy Latimer story and I thought we were discussing parents murdering their children and crime in general.

I agree that the media has a huge effect on the consequences of stories like that. People are easily influenced. It's horrible that the murder rate of disabled children has increased.

She paid her money and took her chances, as a friend of mine likes to say. She could have made a very easy choice and not murdered her daughter over a frakking bath.

Then that's guilt she'll have to live with, assuming she actually feels guilty.

Did she have a choice? I guess, she did to the same extent that all of us have a choice about everything we do. But was it a conscious, well thought out choice? It doesn't sound like that. I can relate because there are things that I know I am supposed to do (or not do) but I can't help myself. Thankfully, the consequences of my impulsive actions aren't that dire but I think that the difference lies in the degree of self control that we have rather than her being fundamentally different or evil.

Again, I can't be sure but I suspect if the mother had a choice now she would not choose to kill her child.

I don't like the idea of anyone hurting, either, but I find it rather disturbing to go on at length how terrible a murderer must feel. When I think of the girl's murder, I think of the people who actually knew her and cared about her and how they are dealing with their loss, and I think about what it was possibly like for the girl to have her own mother smothering her to death. I don't care enough about the person who is responsible for her death to spare any sympathy.

I don't think that empathising with the murderer detracts from feeling sympathy for the victim. The injury to the victim is always constant and it is unrelated to the motivation, reason or emotion behind the crime. Whatever judgement is pronounced on the mother, it won't bring the little girl back. Her loss is absolute. That her mother is to blame is absolute as well.

But this isn't just about blame. The only thing that society can do at this stage really is to investigate why the murder happened and try to ensure that it won't happen again. For that it's important to understand what might have motivated her mother to take such a drastic step and what could have been done to avoid it.

I'm not making excuses for what her mother did but still, I feel for her. I feel for the little girl and everyone who cared for her as well but that includes her mother. I would have felt the same if her child hadn't been disabled.

[Fraser_0762]

Originally Posted by Lunacie

As a parent, it's our responsibility to force our child to take a bath, or take
needed meds, or handle other things that are needed for health.

Kids who already struggle with social issues can not go to school or camp
or play with kids down the street if they are filthy and stinky, and expect
other kids to want to be friends with them.

You should never "force" any child to take medication.

Adults are far too quick to give their children medication these days without actually being fully aware of what they are actually giving them.

Adults don't always know best.

[Fuzzy12]

Originally Posted by Fraser_0762

You should never "force" any child to take medication.

Adults are far too quick to give their children medication these days without actually being fully aware of what they are actually giving them.

Adults don't always know best.

No, adults don't always know best. No one does. We can all just try to inform ourselves as much as possible, make decisions based on the information we have and trust that they are in the best interest of the child.

If a child's life or long-term welfare depended on it, then I think you can and should force a child to take medication especially if the child isn't capable yet of understanding the consequences of not taking medication. Similarly, if parents are (knowingly or unknowingly) mistreating their children, the state should interfere if it's in the best interest of the child.