Saturday, December 20, 2014

20 Moms Who Killed Their Kids

Jim Goad

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Megan Huntsman's mugshot, courtesy of Utah Couny Jail.

Megan Huntsman’s mug shot, provided by Pleasant Grove Utah police.

Thirty-nine-year-old Megan Huntsman of Pleasant Grove, Utah, has allegedly confessed to fatally strangling and suffocating six of her newborn babies from 1996 to 2006.

Acting on a tip from her estranged husband, police searched her home on Saturday and found seven dead infants, six of them stuffed into cardboard boxes. The seventh infant had reportedly been stillborn. A search of court records revealed that apart from a 2011 traffic citation, Huntsman had no criminal record.

The technical term for when a mother kills her child is “maternal filicide.” An estimated 200 women kill their children every year in the United States. I use the term “kill” rather than “murder,” because the latter has a legal meaning, and even mothers who deliberately kill their children often are found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity. In fact, a 1969 study conducted by Dr. Phillip Resnick found that when mothers kill their kids, 68% are sent to mental hospitals and only 27% are sent to prison; when fathers kill their children, 72% go to prison and only 14% are hospitalized.

In 1997, a US Department of Justice study found that children under the age of eight are more likely to be killed by their mothers, while those eight and older are likelier to be killed by their fathers. Throughout childhood, sons are more likely to be killed than are daughters.

If you’re looking for examples of female privilege, look no further than those stats.

Presented in alphabetical order, here are 19 other mothers who killed their children.

2. China Arnold

In 2005, China Arnold of Dayton, OH, stuffed her three-week-old daughter into a microwave oven and burned her to death after arguing with her boyfriend about the child’s biological father.

3. Kenisha Berry

A pair of Texas dumpster-divers in 1998 pulled out a bag from a trash bin that they initially thought contained a baby doll’s leg. Instead, it was the corpse of the four-day-old son of daycare worker Kenisha Berry. She had duct-taped his mouth shut, stuffed him into a black plastic bag, and tossed him into the bin, where he died of suffocation.

4. Diane Downs

In 1983, Oregon mother of three Diane Downs drove into a hospital emergency room with her blood-soaked children and a bullet wound in her forearm, claiming a “bushy-haired stranger” had carjacked and shot them. As her story unraveled, it became evident that it was Downs who’d pulled the trigger, killing her seven-year-old daughter.

5. Brenda Drayton

After a previous hospitalization for falling under the delusion that there were snakes in her body, 29-year-old Brenda Drayton of Flint, MI, strangled her two-year-old daughter to death, believing it had been “the Devil’s baby.” A decade earlier, her infant son had died of malnutrition and dehydration.

6. Shaquan Duley

A disturbingly common M.O. for mothers who kill their kids is to drive them into a body of water until they drown. The case was slightly different in 2010, when Shaquan Duley of South Carolina suffocated her two sons, 18 months and two years old, with her bare hands in a motel room before strapping them into car seats and rolling them into a river.

7. Dora Luz Durenrostro

In 1994, Dora Luz Durenrostro of San Jacinto, CA, stabbed three of her children to death—two daughters aged four and nine as well as her eight-year-old son. A police officer remarked remarked that Durenrostro “never showed remorse or sadness, even after we told her we found the body of her third child.”

8. Susan Eubanks

At the age of 33, Susan Eubanks shot four of her sons—ages 14, seven, six, and four—to death “execution style” in her San Marcos, CA home. She allegedly blamed her alcoholic parents and subpar mental-health treatment.

9. Jeanette Hawes

Early in 2009, Jeanette Michelle Hawes of Augusta, GA, walked into a convenience-store bathroom and stabbed her three-year-old daughter Shakayla and one-year-old son Jordan to death. She was found not guilty by reason of insanity.

10. Debra Jenner-Tyler

In 1987, using a kitchen knife and a “metal toy airplane,” South Dakotan Debra Jenner-Tyler stabbed her three-year-old daughter Abby Lynn 70 times, killing her. Jenner-Tyler claimed she “had been working a lot,” was “under a lot of stress,” and that her daughter had been acting “very finicky.”

11. Michelle Kehoe

After initially claiming one morning in 2008 that her two sons had been abducted, Iowan Michelle Kehoe was found guilty of murder by a jury who heard audiotape of her son Sean, seven at the time she attempted to kill him, testifying how she duct-taped his eyes and mouth before slashing his throat. She had done the same to her two-year-old son Seth, murdering him in the process.

12. Deanna Laney

Late one night in May 2003, Deanna Laney awoke and led her two oldest sons, eight-year-old Joshua and six-year-old Luke, outside her home, where she proceeded to smash in their skulls with a giant rock. She was found not guilty by reason of insanity.

13. Christina Miracle

The ominously named Christina Miracle of Miami Township, OH, killed her six-year-old son in a “bizarre religious ceremony” in which she allegedly thought she was resurrecting her dead brother while baptizing her son. The child was apparently beaten before being suffocated to death.

14. Frances Newton

After taking out life insurance policies on family members and herself, 21-year-old Frances Newton of Houston, Texas used her boyfriend’s gun to kill her husband, her seven-year-old son, and her 21-month-old daughter in April 1987. She received the death penalty and died from a lethal injection in 2005.

15. Robin Lee Row

In 1992, Robin Lee Row—infamous for being Idaho’s only female Death Row inmate—apparently turned off the smoke alarm in an apartment where her estranged husband, ten-year-old son, and eight-year-old daughter were living, squirted a liquid accelerant all over the premises, and set it ablaze, killing all of them. She had previously collected $28,000 in a life-insurance policy for another son who had died in 1980 when his blankets caught fire from a portable heater.

17. Deena Schlossser

In November of 2004, Deena Schlosser used a knife to amputate both arms of her 11-month-old daughter, killing her. Police arrived at the scene to find a blood-soaked Schlosser, knife in hand, singing songs to Jesus. She was found not guilty by reason of insanity.

18. Susan Smith

In 1994, South Carolinian Susan Smith told police that a black man had stolen her car and abucted her two sons, three-year-old Michael and 14-month-old Alex. In truth, she had strapped them to car seats and pushed the car into a lake, drowning them.

19. Marybeth Tinning

Marybeth Tinning’s case is most similar to that of Utah’s Megan Huntsman in that she is apparently a serial killer—i.e., she allegedly snuffed her children in a series of events scattered over years—rather than killing them all in one shot. She oversaw the deaths of nine of her children, one of whom was adopted, during a fourteen-year stretch ending in 1985. She confessed to smothering three of them but was convicted of only one murder and is currently serving a life sentence.

20. Andrea Yates

One day in June 2001, Andrea Yates methodically drowned all five of her children—aged seven years down to six months—in the bathtub of her home in Houston, TX. She told the police and psychiatrists that Satan had ordered her to kill them so that they could be saved from hell. Like so many other killer moms, she successfully copped an insanity plea.

 

 

http://thoughtcatalog.com/jim-goad/2014/04/20-moms-who-killed-their-kids/

Mom Kills Her Two Kids And Then Kills Herself

 

By Joe Tacopino

 

January 15, 2014 | 12:40am

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Jennifer Berman is seen with her two children, Jacqueline and Alexander, in this undated photo. Photo: Instagram

A distraught Florida mom fatally shot her two teenage children before turning the weapon on herself in a tragic murder suicide, according to reports.

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TRAGIC: Dad Richard Berman (center) rushed home only to find his kids, children Alexander 16, and Jacqueline, 15, had been slain by their mother.

Jennifer Berman, 48, gunned down her 16-year-old son Alex and 15-year-old daughter Jacqueline before killing herself on Monday, the Palm Beach Post said.

Her ex-husband, Richard Berman, said in a 911 call that the woman had sent messages to him and others about the impending crime.

“She sent me an email that she did the best thing for our family,” Berman said in the call. “And then she sent her cousin a text that she was going to kill the kids and herself.”

The couple divorced last month, the paper said.

The family had been fighting over money and the home that Berman lived in with her children had recently been sold, according to reports.

Jennifer Berman was working long hours and had recently become unhinged under the pressure, neighbors and friends said.

“Going through a divorce, foreclosure, a lot of that stuff which, it’s an upsetting thing,” family friend Brian McManus told news station WSVN.

“When you’re going through a divorce and having to sell the beautiful house in this neighborhood, and it’s just she just seemed like she had been upset lately.”

The teens, Alex and Jacqueline, attended Alexander W. Dreyfoos School of the Arts in West Palm Beach.

Alex was an accomplished cello player while Jacqueline was a straight A student, classmates said.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://nypost.com/2014/01/15/mom-kills-her-two-kids-then-herself-in-murder-suicide/

Police: Md. mother kills 2 kids while performing exorcism

WUSA 9 Staff 7:31 a.m. EST January 19, 2014

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Zakieya Latrice Avery is charged with two counts of first degree murder and two counts of attempted murder. (Photo: Police)

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GERMANTOWN, Md. (WUSA9) -- A mother killed two of her own children while performing an exorcism in Germantown, Md., police said.

Montgomery County police have charged two women for murder in the Friday deaths of a 1-year-old boy and 2-year-old girl.

Zakieya Latrice Avery, the mother of the children is charged with two counts of first-degree murder for the killings, and two counts of attempted first-degree murder, as two other children remain hospitalized after Friday's attack. Avery, 28, of the 19000 block of Cherry Bend Drive in Germantown, is being held without bond.

Monifa Denise Sanford, 21, who was also at the scene, has been released from the hospital and has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of the two kids and two counts of attempted murder for two children who are still in the hospital. She is also being held without bond.

Police identified the deceased children as Norell N. Harris, a 1-year-old male, and Zyana Z. Harris, a 2-year-old female.

The hospitalized children are identified as Taniya Harris, a 5-year-old female, and Martello Harris, a 8-year-old male.

People have laid down flowers, candles, and teddy bears in front of the home where the two children were killed and the two others were injured. A vigil was held Saturday night to remember the small children who were stabbed to death.

"It's kind of horrifying for any father, any grandfather," State's Attorney John McCarthy said Friday. "These are hard cases," he said, his voice breaking.

There has been no update on the condition of Taniya or Martello.

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Flowers, candles, teddy bears set up in front of the home where 2 kids were stabbed to death in Germantown. (Photo: WUSA)

 

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/01/19/maryland-exorcism-mother-charged-murder/4646937/

Thursday, December 18, 2014

AP IMPACT: Abused kids die as officials fail to protect

Posted: Dec 17, 2014 10:50 PM Updated: Dec 18, 2014 12:31 AM

By HOLBROOK MOHR and GARANCE BURKE
Associated Press

BUTTE, Montana (AP) - At least 786 children died of abuse or neglect in the U.S. in a six-year span in plain view of child protection authorities - many of them beaten, starved or left alone to drown while agencies had good reason to know they were in danger, The Associated Press has found.

To determine that number, the AP canvassed the 50 states, the District of Columbia and branches of the military - circumventing a system that does a terrible job of accounting for child deaths. Many states struggled to provide numbers. Secrecy often prevailed.

Most of the 786 children whose cases were compiled by the AP were under the age of 4. They lost their lives even as authorities were investigating their families or providing some form of protective services because of previous instances of neglect or violence or other troubles in the home.

Take Mattisyn Blaz, a 2-month-old Montana girl who died when her father spiked her "like a football," in the words of a prosecutor.

Matthew Blaz was well-known to child services personnel and police. Just two weeks after Mattisyn was born on June 25, 2013, he came home drunk, grabbed his wife by her hair and threw her to the kitchen floor while she clung to the newborn.

Jennifer Blaz said a child protective services worker visited the day after her husband's attack, spoke with her briefly and left. Her husband pleaded guilty to assault and was ordered by a judge to take anger management classes and stay away from his wife. Convinced he had changed, his wife allowed him to return to the home.

She said the next official contact between the family and Montana child services came more than six weeks later - the day of Mattisyn's funeral.

The system also failed Ethan Henderson, who was only 10 weeks old but already had been treated for a broken arm when his father hurled him into a recliner so hard that it caused a fatal brain injury.

Maine hotline workers had received at least 13 calls warning that Ethan or his siblings were suffering abuse. The caseworker who inspected the family's cramped trailer six days before Ethan died on May 8, 2012, wrote that the baby appeared "well cared for and safe in the care of his parents."

Many factors can contribute to the abuse dilemma nationwide: The child protective services system is plagued with worker shortages and a serious overload of cases. Budgets are tight, and nearly 40 percent of the 3 million child abuse and neglect complaints made annually to child protective services hotlines are "screened out" and never investigated.

Also, insufficient training for those who answer child abuse hotlines leads to reports being misclassified, sometimes with deadly consequences; a lack of a comprehensive national child welfare database allows some abusers to avoid detection by moving to different states; and a policy that promotes keeping families intact can play a major role in the number of deaths.

Because no single, complete set of data exists for the deaths of children who already were being overseen by child welfare caseworkers, the information compiled over the course of AP's eight-month investigation represents the most comprehensive statistics publicly available.

But the number of abuse and neglect fatalities where a prior open case existed at the time of death is undoubtedly much higher than the tally of 760.

Seven states reported a total of 230 open-case child deaths over the six-year period, but those were not included in the AP count because the states could not make a distinction between investigations started due to the incident that ultimately led to a child's death and cases that already were open when the child received the fatal injury.

The data collection system on child deaths is so flawed that no one can even say with accuracy how many children overall die from abuse or neglect every year. The federal government estimates an average of about 1,650 deaths annually in recent years; many believe the actual number is twice as high.

Even more lacking is comprehensive, publicly available data about the number of children dying while the subject of an open case or receiving assistance from the agencies that exist to keep them safe - the focus of AP's reporting.

"We all agree that we cannot solve a problem this complex until we agree it exists," said David Sanders, chairman of the federal Commission to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities, whose members are traveling the country studying child deaths under a congressional mandate.

States submit information on child abuse deaths to the federal government on a voluntary basis - some of it comprehensive, some of it inaccurate. In some cases, states withhold information about child deaths in violation of the terms of federal grants they receive.

The U.S Department of Health and Human Services says all states receiving grants under a prevention and treatment program must "allow the public to access information when child abuse or neglect results in a child fatality," unless those details would put children, their families or those who report abuse at risk, or jeopardize an investigation.

Still, no state has ever been found in violation of disclosure requirements and federal grants have never been withheld, according to Catherine Nolan, who directs the Office on Child Abuse and Neglect, a sub-agency of HHS.

The information that states send the federal government through the voluntary system also is severely lacking.

A 2013 report showed that 17 states did not provide the federal government with a key measure of performance: how many children had died of child abuse after being removed from their homes and then reunited with their families within a five-year period.

When President Richard Nixon signed the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act into law in 1974, it was seen as a sign of federal commitment to preventing child abuse through state-level monitoring.

But in 1995, a board reviewing the subsequent progress issued a scathing report calling or better information and transparency and flagging "serious gaps in data collection."

Nearly 20 years later - 40 years after Nixon signed the act - the AP found that many such problems persist.

The AP National Investigative Team can be reached at investigate@ap.org

Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

 

http://www.tucsonnewsnow.com/story/27657200/ap-impact-abused-kids-die-as-officials-fail-to-protect