Posted on 11/23/2004 11:57:32 AM PST by Jersey Republican Biker Chick
PLANO, Texas (AP) With a calm and dispassionate voice and a hymn playing in the background, Dena Schlosser confessed to the unthinkable, telling a 911 operator she'd cut off the arms of her baby girl.
The woman was sitting in her living room covered with blood when police arrived Monday. Her nearly 11-month-old daughter lay fatally injured in a crib in a bedroom of the family's apartment in Plano. The child died shortly afterward at a nearby hospital.
Police have charged the 35-year-old mother with capital murder, but declined to reveal where she is being held.
Schlosser, who had a history of postpartum depression, had been investigated on child neglect allegations earlier 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. Neighbors said she seemed to be a loving, attentive mother.
"There were never any indications of violence with this family," agency spokeswoman Marissa Gonzales said. "The children had always been healthy, happy and cared for."
But, on Monday, authorities discovered a grisly scene at the family's apartment after the child's father called a day-care center, and asked them to check on his wife and daughter.
Day-care workers called 911 after talking to the mother; an operator then called Schlosser.
Asked if there was an emergency, Schlosser calmly responded "Yes," according to 911 tapes released by police.
"Exactly what happened?" the 911 operator asked.
"I cut her arms off," Schlosser replied, as the hymn "He Touched Me" played in the background.
"You cut her arms off?" he repeated.
"Uh huh," she answered.
It was not immediately clear what instrument was used to sever the baby's arms or why the child's father called a day-care center to check on his family.
Schlosser lived at the apartment with other family members, including her two older daughters. Authorities said the girls, ages 6 and 9, were at school when police arrived, and that their father was at work.
No one answered the door Monday night at the family's apartment in suburban Dallas. Children's bicycles rested near the entrance along with angel garden statues.
Neighbors said Schlosser took her children swimming in the summer, had picnics in the courtyard and walked her baby around the complex the same time each afternoon.
Dena Livingston, 43, said she saw Schlosser making her rounds with the stroller on Sunday. Two days earlier, she saw Schlosser waiting with the baby outside the elementary school where her two other daughters attend.
"She didn't give off like she was in a distant world or didn't care about the baby," Livingston said.
Livingston's husband, Brad, added: "To see her with the girls, you would just think she was a great mother."
Child-protective officials were interviewing Schlosser's daughters and would talk to the father before deciding whether to remove the girls from the home.
In January, the agency was called to the home after Schlosser was seen running down the street, with one of her daughters bicycling after her, authorities said. When officials arrived, the child told them her mother had left her 6-day-old sister alone in the apartment.
Schlosser appeared at the time to be suffering from postpartum depression and having a psychotic episode, Gonzales said.
Schlosser was hospitalized, and later agreed to seek counseling and saw a psychiatrist, Gonzales said.
"At the time we closed the case, we had been assured that Mom was stabilized and that she was not a risk to herself or her children," Geoff Wool, spokesman for the Family and Protective Services Department, said.
Oh, you can claim PPD right up until you're acquitted or found guilty but insane, which means you're sentenced to an asylum, which means you're off lighter than any man who couldn't possibly get off with such a ridiculous excuse.
Imagine a man saying, "I'm sad because my wife delivered my baby and died in childbirth, and now I have to take care of the baby. I cut the child's head off because I have this big hole in my heart missing my wife and I'm sad."
He would be dead already. The cops wouldn't even let him get out of the house. He'd have a weapon planted on him after they filled that hole in his heart full of lead.
Instead the NOW nags will come out of the woodwork and the dad will be painted a heartless man, compounding the injury this awful woman did to her family.
God, I think I'm gonna be sick.
I have no sympathy whatsoever for a woman who would do this to her infant baby. She may be mentally ill, but her punishment for such a sick atrocity like this should be meted out by God himself.
We should arrange the meeting as soon as we can, and the messanger is the electric chair.
Oh, I'm sorry,. I didn't realize you were a Doctor. Tell me, in what subject did you receive your degree?
It seems to me we've had numerous cases of mentally ill mothers murdering their kids in the last decade.
By the way, the child's father called the day care center after the mother called him at work and told him she'd cut the arms off their child. The night before, she told her husband she wanted to "give her child to God,". There is a little bit more to this story.
http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/nation/10257244.htm
Granted there is a lot more than we BOTH know. But if this mom hasn't been violent to her kids, ever, I don't see why the statements the mother made should have scared the dad the day before without any other context.
Now, your wife calls up and says "I cut our baby's arms off," yeah, I'd be scared. And the dad reacted appropriately there.
" Depression is twice as common in women as it is in men, with its peak incidence during the primary reproductive years. The link between reproductive status and depressive illness is further evidenced by the high frequency of depression during the premenstrual phase, the perimenopausal period, and the immediate postpartum period."
"Using data from more than 35,000 deliveries with sequential 90-day intervals over a 2-year period preceding and following the delivery, Kendell and colleagues clearly demonstrate a sevenfold increase in the risk of psychiatric hospitalization in the first 3 months after delivery. In this study, the risk of psychosis was 22 times higher than the prepregnancy rate, and the calculated relative risk (RR) of childbirth for the development of psychosis was 16. However, 87% of the admissions were for affective disorders, with the majority of diagnoses being major depression."
"At the other end of the spectrum is the truly devastating puerperal psychosis. A comparatively rare disease, it complicates only 0.1% to 0.2% of deliveries--but this is 12 to 14.5 times the prenatal incidence of psychosis.6,9 Symptoms generally present within the first 4 weeks postpartum, when the risk of hospitalization is 22 times greater, but can manifest up to 90 days after delivery."
While a nearly infintesimal percentage of the latter group can manifest symptoms as late as 18-24 months following delivery, apparently, postpartum depression has now been redefined as a convenient excuse for women to murder abort their children at any age when they might become inconvenient.
Police have charged the 35-year-old mother with capital
murder, but declined to reveal where she is being held.Capital murder. The DP is in play, then.
I can't help but feel these type of people have a 'special' place waiting for them - an appointment if you will.
But wait, wasn't he assured by the experts after a 7 month investigation that every thing was o.k.?
She looks crazy. Poor kid. The last thing she saw.
I can't help but feel these type of people have a 'special'
place waiting for them - an appointment if you will.Oh, yeah!
HERE is their special place.
Yep. Lord help this sick old world.
I am so horribly upset by so called "Mothers" who kill their babies, or children they have killed or tortured!
This recent story about the woman who cut her babies arms off, left me in a rage of distress and torment thinking of that sweet little innocent baby girl, the horror of it all was too much to think of anything all evening.
I only pray that this woman who is NOT anything that could or should be called a "Mother" will rot in hell, or have her own arms cut unmercifully off!
These demons in our society, get off on pleading insanity.
Of course they must in fact be! But, who the hell cares if they feel any pain when they die for what they did?
I would like to have offerred my own body in protection of that baby; I would have beat that woman to death to save her child, including the one who drowned her 5!
People the world over would take these little ones and love them. These are nothing but selfish self centered bizzare cases of cruel evil that should be punished to the extreme of our so called "Laws" of State and God's laws..which maybe will be even worse. Although, I cry "Where was he?" When these unspeakable acts were being carried out? Someone please tell me. I don't understand these cases, the monsters who walk amoung us...just waiting to do violent acts upon our babies, or us.
Not to mention the stupidity of local child welfare that might have prevented this horrible deed! May they think about it forever.
Yep!
I'd like to "TOUCH HER" really bad, and it would be the last thing she ever felt!
Wasn't there another woman in Texas who did this same thing in the past few years?
You mean we may have a horrible case of "CopyCat" mutilation by a pack of demented witches? I am so sickened by this story, I am so wishing I could see that woman get what she deserves.
I bet she gets off, gets put on medication and continues as though baby "Maggie" never was born. I don't know her and I hate her! Now if only God could hate...I have no power beyond words..he has power he never seems to use. Someone tell me why? Please? This story has been rotting my very soul. I have become violent in my dreams. I am a law abidding person, gentle..cradle babies all the time, kittens and puppies..hand feed the unwanted..yet I want to KILL that woman. Oh well, I guess I need a shrink.
"Nags" blaming the Father?
I blame the child protective services even more. I am curious about the other kids, I am curious about the Father.
But mostly I am surious and appauled ..sick to my stomach type of misery only a real Mother could feel.
He could have taken notice that this freaky bat was not acting like a real Mother. Let alone even a kindly baby-sitter.
She was a self centered ugly witch! I hope the kids go to a family of saftey, the man can go to the moon..or somewhere? The female loosley called the "Mom" needs to burnt at the stake!
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