Mother charged with slitting throat of 6-month-old daughter (new article + photo of 'mother')

Minneapolis Star Tribune ^ | 8/6/03 | Curt Brown

[shhrubbery!]

Mine Ener was worried. She was having trouble feeding her 6-month-old daughter, and she knew that the baby -- who had Down syndrome -- might have to go back on a feeding tube.

For several days, the new mother was concerned that she might even harm her baby, Raya Donagi.

On Monday morning, she told police that she wanted to ease her daughter's suffering. So Ener laid the girl on a bathroom floor, pressed a kitchen knife against her throat and cut her twice, according to a second-degree murder charge filed Tuesday in Ramsey County. She told paramedics who arrived Monday: "I killed my baby with a knife."

Ener, a college professor who was in St. Paul to visit, told police that she had been taking antidepressants for postpartum depression and had considered suicide.

Mine A. Ener

St. Paul Police

As she awaits her first court appearance, she is being held in the county jail in lieu of $500,000 bail, and child advocates and law enforcement authorities are struggling to understand her actions.

"She had the resources to deal with the issues she had in her life, financially and, more importantly, with a family that seemed to support her in every sense," Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner said.

Ener, 38, an associate history professor at Villanova University in Philadelphia, was back in her hometown visiting her mother.

excerpt -- entire story here

[shhrubbery!]

(Two articles on this story have been posted already, but as this one is from a different source, with more detail and a photo, I thought it was worth posting.)

The first thing I noticed about this article was the sympathetic opening:

Mine Ener was worried. She was having trouble feeding her 6-month-old daughter, and she knew that the baby -- who had Down syndrome -- might have to go back on a feeding tube.

The reporter presumes Ms. Ener was merely 'worried.' How does he know?

Perhaps she was not 'worried,' but enraged. Enraged that it was so darned hard to feed this child. Enraged that her offspring was not 'perfect.' Enraged that she, an 'up-and-coming' professor, might have to subordinate part of her life to the care of her 'defective' infant.

I also find it curious that most of the articles on this story, so far, describe Ms. Ener's actions as "pressing" a knife against her baby daughter's throat.

Surely, were the liberal press not so sympathetic to this killer, the description would go more like this: KILLER SAVAGELY SLASHES INFANT'S THROAT.

[Huck]

Your analysis is well founded. The opener approaches rationalization.

[Puppage]

Kinda reminds me of Liz Hurley

[danneskjold]

sacrilege...

[CCCV]

II Timothy 3:1..3
This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For... ...Without natural affection...

[wideawake]

This woman is a history professor of Middle East Studies at Villanova and a big booster of the terrorists in Judaea and Samaria.

She links her homepage to Al-Awda - the Hamas front organization.

[Puppage]

sacrilege...

Yes, I know. But, come on...don't ya see it? In the eyes?

[joesnuffy]

Uncanny resemblence

[dennisw]

Enraged that she, an 'up-and-coming' professor, might have to subordinate part of her life to the care of her 'defective' infant.........

I was guessing that her child might have some "problems". That this was part of the reason for this murder. I'm not making excuses for her but let's see if the jury will buy into the excuses her lawyer/liars will fling at them. And I guarantee the "defective" baby will be one.

The blame_the_baby defense!

[sticker]

"Ener, a college professor who was in St. Paul to visit, told police that she had been taking antidepressants for postpartum depression and had considered suicide."

Then why didn't she slit her own throat instead of the baby's?

[JesseHousman]

I wonder what this member of the intelligencia taught?

[wideawake]

See my post 6. She focused on Middle East Studies with an emphasis on feminism.

[Alouette]

She looks like Andrea Yates, only crazier.

[dsc]

Is it just because I knew what she did before I looked at the picture, or are those some *really* scary eyes?

[Lil'freeper]

child advocates and law enforcement authorities are struggling to understand her actions.

Why? Had she done this 6 months ago, it would have been perfectly legal. In fact, I'm sure they would have applauded her courage.

[shhrubbery!]

From the St. Paul Pioneer Press:

"Here is a woman who has worked very hard in her career and was very successful. And she probably expected to be just as successful in childbearing and childrearing," said Dr. Shari Lusskin, director of reproductive psychiatry at the New York University School of Medicine.

"And to have a child that is handicapped, it must have been devastating to her." --source

Yes, it's far more 'devastating' for an elitist careerist feminist to have a handicapped baby than for the rest of us hoi polloi.

[dennisw]

Where's dad? No mention so far. Is dad just a sperm donor for a prof with a ticking biological clock?

[shhrubbery!]

She looks like Andrea Yates, only crazier.

I don't think either of them looked 'crazy.' Demonic, perhaps, but not 'crazy.'

[wideawake]

You've definitely got something there.

I wonder where the father is in all this - or who the father is? Maybe he has a Saudi-issued visa that expired?

[wideawake]

I think most rational people's first impulse when they see that their children are having serious problems is to slit the little tyke's throat, right?