MURDER OF CHILDREN BY PARENTS.   Term Paper ID:21675 Click to get this paper

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Paper Abstract: Prevalence, causes, sudden infant death syndrome, case studies. Paper Introduction: INTRODUCTION The incident which brought the issue of parents who murder their children to the fore in the American consciousness most recently was the case of Susan Smith, a young mother who told one story to the world for weeks and then was forced to tell the truth. She claimed that her car had been stolen by a black man at an intersection, and that he had driven off with her two children in the back seat. She later was charged with having driven her car--and her two young sons--into a lake, leaving the world wondering how so many people could have been fooled, how they could have been so ready to accept the story that a black person had committed such a crime, and most important of all, how a mother could kill her children. The world may have been surprised, but police were less so. Medical and police Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. They may have been victims of violence themselves.[7]These young people commonly have a history of previous violence, socialisolation, substance abuse, and poverty. Department ofHealth and Human Services calculates that in 1992 about 1,1 children diedfrom abuse or neglect, and such deaths are far more common than thesensational murders that are found in the news media. They may be very young and not ready for the demands of parenthood. [6]Toufexis, "When Is Crib Death a Cover for Murder?," 64. It's not black, Hispanic or white, rich or poor. Indeed, it is often the case that theseparents do not know where they can receive the help they need, or even thatsuch help is available. More and more doctors andpsychiatrists cite a temporary mental breakdown in the months after givingbirth, postpartum disorders that can range from mild depression to full-blown psychosis. There was also the genetic-flaw theory. There should besuspicion, however, when several apparently healthy babies die in onefamily. Themessage gleaned from this is that it is important to educate people and tohelp them become better parents. Calling killers of this sortsympathy junkies, Vincent Di Maio, medical examiner of San Antonio, Texas,states that they "usually keep killing until they're caught or run out ofchildren."[1 ] One of the more bizarre cases of this sort was that of MarybethTinning, who is suspected of killing 9 of her children between 1972 and1985. [12]Ibid., 122. Susan Smith is not the only mother to kill herchildren, nor is she the first to fool the public into supporting hersearch for her children before the truth comes to the fore. They were nevercalled back. These feelings usually disappear within acouple of weeks, but some 8 to 12 percent of women who give birth suffer ablacker torment and become seriously depressed for months. [11]Joyce Egginton, "The Bad Mother," Good Housekeeping (April 1989),121. This isnot an isolated case. CONCLUSION The murder of children by their parents is not a unique situation andmay develop out of a number of social and emotional pressures, some ofwhich can be identified while others remain unclear. She was sentenced to 2 years in prison,and her appeal was denied. These people injure their childrenin their place. They may inject the youngsters with poisons or drugs ormix blood in their urine, and parents have even been caught by surveillancecameras attempting to smother their offspring in their hospital beds.[6] Authorities are more unanimous in their expression of the socialroots of parental killing. She would rest her head on a table and sit silently, showing, says an investigator, "a lot of characteristic traits of someone who was about to break." But she was a formidable subject. Says [Robert] Hazelwood [a former FBI behavioral scientist]: "It happens in families where there's no history of violence and where there's a long history of violence. These children mayhave a long medical record of being brought barely breathing to hospitalsby the parent who says they have a history of turning blue and losingconsciousness. These women enjoysitting around hospitals feelingimportant.[13] The most recent case was that of Susan Smith, and it captured thepublic's attention because of the long period during which it was believedthat her children had been abducted and that she was a victim. A few new mothers,less then one percent, become psychotic. Thomas Moran, presidentof the SIDS alliance, states: The truth is that bias and confusion will disappear only when people are really sure why every baby in this country dies.[9] CASES A number of cases have brought this issue to the public eye in recentyears and show the variety of problems involved and the difficulties facedby authorities in establishing that a crime has been committed. "When Is Crib Death a Cover for Murder?" Time (April 11, 1994), 63-65.Van Biema, David. "Evolutionary Social Psychology and Family Homicide." Science (October 28, 1988), 519-524.Egginton, Joyce. A pediatrician who hadclosely monitored the last two children wrote up the family's history in a1972 medical journal as a classic example of how sudden infant deathsyndrome (or SIDS) can run in families. By the time ofthe fifth death, Marybeth's coworkers were sympathizing with her but werealso sharing their doubts privately with one another. Dr. Beckwith states: The mind can be so shell-shocked by the first loss that there is a need to work through the grief by recreating the experience. Inthis complex form of child abuse, a woman who morbidly craves attentionuses her child by deliberately making the infant ill. [13]Ibid., 119-122. Doctors and sociologists statethat for every infant murdered, there is another saved by the interventionof community health professionals and protective-services workers. The case raises a number of questions that haveto be answered to prevent this sort of thing from happening again: How, in the course of 13 years, in a relatively small city, could nine children in a single family die, one after another, most of them within a few months of birth--and no official investigation take place until the ninth child died? In these earlier instances, bothmothers reacted to the natural death of an infant by trying to suffocatesubsequent babies. It crosses racial lines, socioeconomic lines. And--a question that may never be satisfactorily answered--Why?[11] The answer to the first question is complex. Freud's "Oedipal theory" made the urge to killone's father a normal element of the male psyche, and Bloch maintained thatthe "central preoccupation of childhood" is the fear of parental filicide.Such murderous impulses take place in real families: With the exception of the police and the military, the family is perhaps the most violent social group, and the home the most violent social setting, in our society. In Waukegan, Illinois, Gail Savage is accused ofsmothering her three babies. Duringpregnancy, estrogen and progesterone increase a thousandfold, then abruptlydrop to normal or sometimes below normal after birth; this mayprecipitate sudden emotional disorders. As for why, this question is even more difficult to answer. The education effort has to extend beyond theseparents, however, for society at large also has only a dim understanding ofthis issue: What is remarkable is that America, which 3 years ago did not talk openly about cancer and 15 years ago was leery of the subject of abuse, is still reluctant to believe that such tragedies can happen. Medical experts have long known that though the yearafter the birth of a child may be one of the most joyful times in a woman'slife, it is also among the most stressful, and between 5 and 8 percent ofnew mothers experience an emotional letdown, becomingsensitive, moody, and tearful. One of the primereasons may have been that it was almost impossible to suspect that a womanwho was so baby-hungry that she kept having one child after another andadopted another one would want to kill them. A daughter died at 48 days--hermother was feeding the child when the infant choked, turned blue, and died.Another daughter died at home in bed at three months, and a similar fatebefell another son, who was her last-born child. After the sixthdeath, several of the waitresses who worked with Marybeth acted on theirsuspicions and called the local Social Services office. In 1986, Marybeth was arrested and questioned, and eventually sheconfessed to killing three of her children. They are plagued by thoughts of suicide or fantasies ofkilling their baby by dropping it down the stairs, burying it in thebackyard, or cutting it up with a kitchen knife. However, SIDS parents are among themost fervent supporters of stricter investigations. The combination of emotional and physicalchanges can produce aberrations in behavior.[4] In spite of the elaborate explanations and plots produced after thefact in many cases, the sort of planning that may have been involved in theSusan Smith case is unusual. "Parents Who Kill." Time (November 14, 1994), 5 -51.----------------------- [1]David Van Biema, "Parents Who Kill," Time (November 14, 1994), 5 . PREVALENCE About 662 children under the age of 5 were murdered in 1992, andexperts say that roughly two-thirds were murdered by their parents. [8]Ibid., 51. babies who dieof SIDS each year actually expire of other causes, including murder. Authorities accuse her of smothering three with pillows, one witha bath towel, and another by pressing its face against her shoulder, withthe specifics based on a confession that Hoyt has since recanted. She later was charged with havingdriven her car--and her two young sons--into a lake, leaving the worldwondering how so many people could have been fooled, how they could havebeen so ready to accept the story that a black person had committed such acrime, and most important of all, how a mother could kill her children.The world may have been surprised, but police were less so. Asthe deaths continued, other calls were made to Social Services and thechild abuse hot line. [2]Anastasia Toufexis, "When Is Crib Death a Cover for Murder?," Time(April 11, 1994), 63. Dr. Michael Durfee, a child psychiatrist withthe Los Angeles County Department of Health Services and a leading expertin the area, states that men are more often responsible than women forkilling offspring under 12, as shown by state and local statistics. Admittedly, this can cause greater pain to parentsalready stunned by the loss of a child to crib death or some other naturalcause, since now, in addition to enduring their grief, they will face moreintense questioning from officials. The statistics on parentswho kill their children vary, measured on different scales, gauging notonly infanticide but other social ills as well. WanetaHoyt lost her first child nearly 3 years ago, suddenly and inexplicably,and she then tearfully told doctors that she found him barely breathing inhis crib and could not revive him. Moreover, she failed numerous lie-detector tests, tripped up each time by the question, "Do you know where your children are?" Interviewing her for hours every day at a couple of secret locations, Pete Logan, a veteran interrogator from the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED), often felt she was on the verge of confessing. He was three months old, and her secondchild, was a little over two when, according to his mother, he called outafter breakfast one morning and expired. Thekiller in such cases is the mother, and she may slay for insurance or fromfrustration or even in a twisted bid for attention and sympathy. Precisely what forces come together toproduce this violent reaction is a matter of much speculation. Such thoughts create atremendous amount of guilt and shame in these women. But if many were convinced by her performance, the police were not. Marybethconfessed to killing only three of her nine children, insisting that theothers died of natural causes. Theynote that homicide within the family has been a theme of greatpsychological significance, one seen not only in psychology but inliterature and mythology. [3]Martin Daly and Margo Wilson, "Evolutionary Social Psychology andFamily Homicide," Science (October 28, 1988), 519. No one iscertain what causes these mental conditions, but both physical andpsychological explanations have been suggested. . Dr. Randell Alexander, a child-abuseexpert at the University of Iowa Medical School, also notes that when thereis a more elaborate cover-up offered, the perpetrator is more often afemale.[1] The issue of SIDS deaths complicates any effort to gain an accuratefigure for the number of children killed by their parents, and authoritiesacross the country are taking a harder look at such deaths. Inaddition, at each death a reputable doctor had certified a plausible causeof death. "Why Mothers Kill Their Babies." Time (June 2 , 1988), 81-82.Toufexis, Anastasia. Some of the local hospital personnel who had dealt withseveral of the infant deaths were also suspicious, and two nurses filedreports. Even if that were true, what led her tokill at all? Why was no official action taken earlier? Breast feeding is also accompaniedby major hormonal changes which may also have consequences. Susan Hiatt, the director of the Kempe NationalCenter for the Prevention and Treatment of Child Abuse and Neglect inDenver, states that generally parents who kill their children tend to be under a lot of stress. Social Services questioned Marybeth, but no action was taken. Therewere no suggestions of mistreatment in the babies' lifetimes, and Marybethseemed a devoted mother. [7]Ibid., 51. It's as though the mother tries to punish herself, over and over, for her first baby's death.[12]Another possible explanation refers to Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy. Hoyt went on to adopt a son, whois now 17. She never forgot the children who died and kept their photosthroughout the house and laid flowers on their graves every Memorial Day.It now appears that the bereaved mother may have been getting away withmurder, and she has been brought to trial for suffocating all five of herchildren. A person is more likely to be hit or killed in his or her home by another family member than anywhere else or by anyone else.[3] EXPLANATIONS A number of possible reasons have been offered for the prevalence ofchild-killing, especially that by mothers. SIDS experts are also calling for standardized protocols to guidethese investigations. One of themost common patterns involves a woman who is severely depressed and who mayalso be suicidal. Medical andpolice professionals know of many such cases each year, and when a childdisappears, the parents are usually the first rather than the last peoplesuspected of the crime. It's a horror that we as a society are going to be confronted with again and again."[8] The increasing awareness of child abuse in the United States hasbrought about increased attention from law enforcement and medicalauthorities, now seeking a more aggressive approach to investigating infantdeaths. From the start, investigators found her story filled with inconsistencies and outright lies. An examinationof the issue shows how much effort is being put into trying to understandwhy this happens, how to prevent it, and how to address the guilty partywhen it does happen. Dr. Bruce Beckwith, chairman of the department of pathologyat the Children's Hospital in Denver, Colo., and an expert in SIDS, has atheory based on two earlier cases. [5]Van Biema, 5 -51. [1 ]Ibid., 63. BibliographyDaly, Martin and Margo Wilson. Onereason the murders go undetected is that suffocation, the usual method ofthese infanticides, is virtually indistinguishable from SIDS on autopsy,and thus single deaths do not raise much suspicion. Suddenly she would sit bolt upright and resolutely stick to her story.[14]Ultimately, she gave in and confessed, but to date her motivations remainsomewhat obscure. She claimed that her car hadbeen stolen by a black man at an intersection, and that he had driven offwith her two children in the back seat. [14]Shelley Levitt, "Portrait of a Killer," People Weekly (November 21,1994), 56.----------------------- 1 In all likelihood they are socially isolated and do not have a large social net. Another sign of possible foul play is seen in repeated bids formedical attention for the children before they die. New mothers today often lack asupport structure to relieve them of the added pressures and the continuingstrains of everyday living. "Portrait of a Killer." People Weekly (November 21, 1994), 55-59.Toufexis, Anastasia. Physical causes are notedin terms of what happens to a woman around the time of birth. They may suffer extremeagitation, feel persecuted, and begin hallucinating. In addition,caring for a newborn is demanding physically and emotionally, and it is atask for which many women are ill prepared. According to Dr. Michael Baden, director of the forensic-sciences unit of the New York State police, "This isn't the pattern forSIDS, where babies have no serious prior problems and are suddenly dead intheir cribs."[2] Some psychologists consider the issue of infanticide and child-killing as only one manifestation of violence in the family group. INTRODUCTION The incident which brought the issue of parents who murder theirchildren to the fore in the American consciousness most recently was thecase of Susan Smith, a young mother who told one story to the world forweeks and then was forced to tell the truth. Some doctors cite psychosis or postpartum depression ascontributing factors.[5] Another factor is called Munchausen's syndrome byproxy in which mothers secretly make their children sick to win attention.Psychiatrists identify this as a bizarre mental condition that impelspeople to feign or induce illness in order to get care andnurturing from doctors and hospitals. They may act on theirimpulses and kill their children in a psychotic episode. The deaths were attributed to a genetic disorder, but one of thechildren was adopted, making this an unlikely solution. Most parents who kill their children do notplan the act but instead find themselves under pressure and stress thatproduces a violent reaction. [4]Anastasia Toufexis, "Why Mothers Kill Their Babies," Time (June 2 ,1988), 81. It isbelieved that the younger the victim, the greater the chance that his orher mother is the culprit, if only because mothers are still America'sprimary care givers during infancy. [9]Toufexis, "When Is Crib Death a Cover for Murder?," 65. These womenundergo mercurial mood swings, lose their appetite, and go sleepless fornights on end. Society has always had a difficult time acceptingthis sort of crime, coping with it in the courts, and punishing parents whokill their children. Socialworkers cite mental depression, social isolation, and a history of abuse asthe main causes for this behavior in parents. "The Bad Mother." Good Housekeeping (April 1989), 119- 123.Levitt, Shelley. The last childdied in 1985, and by then there was sufficient suspicion in the communitythat medical authorities took a closer look at the death than they hadpreviously. She was tried for seconddegree murder and found guilty. Clearly, after thefirst few deaths, suspicion began to arise in some quarters. . In Garden City, Kansas, Diane Lumbrera wasconvicted of fatally suffocating her son, and she had already pleaded nocontest in Texas to killing a daughter. An autopsy showed that the last child had died of suffocation,and it was surmised that this had been the case with the other children aswell. According tomedical examiners, police, and prosecutors, SIDS is a label that is tooreadily affixed to mysterious deaths, and they believe that anywhere from 1percent to as much as 2 percent of the 7, to 8, U.S. More common are thesmaller deceptions practiced by mothers who claim that abused or neglectedchildren died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) or accidents, andCharles Ewing, a law and psychology professor at the State University ofNew York at Buffalo, estimates that only half the country's abuse deathsare uncovered as homicides. Such postpartummental disorders are so far poorly understood, and psychiatrists debatewhether they are distinct forms of depression or psychosis. The publicwas taken by her story and sympathized, but those with more experiencequestioned what was happening from the beginning: In the time between the alleged kidnapping and her confession, Smith cut a tragic figure before the cameras, beseeching God to protect her babies, her fair, delicately featured face streaked with tears. Thus, social workers had no abuses toinvestigate, and they were not trained to look for murder clues. Most states now require an autopsy for all babies who dieunexpectedly, and before a diagnosis of SIDS can be made, an examination ofthe scene of death and a review of the child's medical history must bemade. The natural tendencyfor the public is to believe the parents simply because we do not want toadmit that such crimes can take place, but more and more authorities areseeing the need for greater care in the disposition of such cases. 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