Posted on 11/22/2004 2:03:51 PM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
An infant died Monday after her mother called 911 to report that she had cut off the baby's arms, police said.
When authorities arrived, they found the baby with her arms severed and the mother waiting calmly with blood on her clothing, police said. The baby died at a hospital.
The 35-year-old mother, whose name was not released, was being questioned by police.
Authorities said other family members, including two school-age children, lived together in the Plano apartment.
That is why that plea needs to be replaced by guilty but mentally ill. After the mental illness is cured or in remission through the use of appropriate medication or treatment, the rest of the sentence would be carried out at a penal facility. You get cured, you do rest of your time in the general population or on death row. No excuses.
I'm sorry about your son-in-law and his family. It sounds like in that case the psychologists were incompetent and that only exacerbated an already tragic situation. There is, however, all the difference in the world between a POS who fakes mental illness, and someone truly afflicted. In the case of this article, I think there are several victims and no criminals. It should be treated as a tragedy without desire for vengeance.
More on this tragedy here.
I think I'm damaged for life.
I agree. I work with a couple of patients who have killed and are totally psychotic. That level of mental disfunction does exist; sad, scary but very real.
There are many drugs and drug combinations which will induce a drug psychosis. Hundreds of adverse reactions to hundreds of drugs. I cannot even speculate without knowing more specifics. However even drugs which are not considered psychotropic drugs can do this. However if I were to bet, this is an illicit drug/alcohol abuser who went over the top. The thing that seems to have changed so radically is the vicious nature of hurting little kids. It is so far beyond getting a whipping for doing something when I was a kid. A decision to cut of a childs arms is so definitive and barbaric. It isn't a random thought like, "today I'll cut off my 11 month old child's arms." There is clarity of purpose. It wasn't her finger or fingers or toes or other appendage. The arms were taken off and that conscious decision is a perplexing one. Even to kill the child seems to be a less dreadful act that cutting off the baby's arms. Think of what this woman must have been thinking. Even shooters, like these 2 Mohammud and the 17 year old, were random in their kiling. Ruthless and without remorse, but not a design "I will kill this person, or I will torture in such-and-such a manner" I remember once receiving a child in the emergency room. The 15 month old baby had been immersed in scalding hot water up to its armpits. That is where the stepfathers hands were holding the baby and he could not tolerate the pain. There was a circumlinear ring around the childs torso and burned with partial thickness burns (2nd degree) the entire lower portion of the body. This is a common type of torture well documented in trauma literature. Cruelty and mutilations have always occurred to the innocent, but there seems to be so much more these days. It may be an expression of population density induced anxiety, or envy, or a desire to get out of one's personal situation, mostly drug induced altered states of consciousness releasing inhibitions that are normally present, and then there are some who are just plain mean. In our society it seems there is more anger and more expressed anger. We drive down the road and someone cuts in front of you and you get angry but keep it in check. Some do not keep it in check and pull out a gun and start shooting. I remember on Valentines Day about 1991 I received a middle aged man in the ER with a gunshot would to the abdomen (self inflicted).I also received a 24 year old female who was DOA. I took the man to the OR and repaired the stomach, pancreas, several perforations in the small bowel and transverse colon, and did a diversionary colostomy on him. He progressed well. The story is that he caught his girl friend in bed with another man. He left the house and ruminated on it and began seething. He had been in a dispute with his sisters over inheriting a chicken house (that is where farmers raise thousands of chickens in one large chicken house. I don't know why I felt I had to explain what a chickenhouse is). He decided to settle all scores and took a 30-30 rifle and went to his sisters house and got in an arguement and shot her. Then he went into the house and killed his brother-in-law. He tried, 3 am , to find the man his girlfriend was shacking with and could not. By that time he knew his girfrient was at work so he went to the warehouse where she worked and shot her in the back twice. He then turned the rifle on him and shot himself. He is the only one who lived. Now I tell you this story to say this. About 4-5 days after his surgery I asked him what provoked him to this. He was a quiet,somewhat shy fellow who told me "I was having a bad day and decided to settle all scores". He had been drinking and smoking marijuana. I believe these chemicals removed normal inhibitions built into all of us, and allowed him to act on these impulses. These kinds of conscious decisions seem to be occurring at an ever increasing rate of occurrance. It used to be pleasant to see patients in the office. Now everyone is pissed off. There seems to have come a bitter resentment of many peoples station in life or opportunities to have settled over the country. President Bush (41) referred to it when lamented he wanted a kinder, gentler, America. My country has lost an innocents and a goodness. Not all people, but many. De Toqueville was right about the goodness of a nation. It worries me for posterity. I am what I am and that is settled. But what kind of world will we leave to our children. We have this repreave with W. But who comes after him. Heaven help us if Hillary Clinton and her moral compass guides this nation.
How long, oh Lord?
That gave me a nasty flash back to the last ambulance call I ran, and that baby had only had her arm dunked in the pot. After that, I stuck to the Fire Engines, We still saw plenty of messes, especially 10-50's, but somehow it was not as bad.
Don't sweat that, it was a long time ago and has been dealt with.
It seems to me that many of these drugs cannot be quit cold turkey without some adverse effects. Without some supervision to at least make sure the meds are there, anyone taking such a substance is a potential serious risk to themselves and others. Klebold and Harris (Columbine) had been medicated, as had Kip Kinkel (involved in an Oregon, HS shooting). With more medicated people out there, we are seeing more of this. I am not sure if it is the drugs while present in their system, although that is one instance, but stopping them may be as bad.
I make no claim to be an expert, but I'd exhaust EVERY possibility before putting any child on meds, although that seems to be the trend. Amazingly, diet seems to be a factor, and good parenting, (really caring and spending time with your kids) another, in not having problems. It seems like 'mother's little helper' (Rolling Stones song) has run amok, taking the place of bothering to care for kids, self, the elderly. That is the sad part of our culture, that we are caught up in the pursuit of things, when the contributions we make to our kids are the greatest thing we will do in this life==if we make them.
She's so stupid, she could have gone to planned parenthood a few weeks before the birth and had the baby cut to pieces and flushed with no problem. I guess "timing is everything."
I agree with your view of prescribing drugs. I feel we should prescribe about 10 percent of the drugs now prescribed. With all the good modern medicine affords, it is a big part of the problem today for many unusual behaviors. I do not accept that they are a valid excuse for such behaviors. A sick little secret in medicine is when you are seeing someone and they drone on and on and on the doctor (who is a person too) has his eyes glaze over and often seek an exit. The quickest way to do this is to write a prescription and get out of the room, rather than reasoning with a patient. It is many a patient I have gotten angry with me for not writing the script. I am lucky, though, because in the field I am in, I fix things and people get better (surgery). If your practice requires a large volume of patients, you are trying to herd them through like cattle through a chute. This is part of the problem. Look at commercials today telling people to gol in and ask your doctor to prescribe this or that drug. It's like they demand a reward for coming in. Some do the same on a street corner. It's like Willy Nelson said in his song from "Electric Horseman", 'when it seems the whole world is spinning of in space."
She lives in an apartment building.....no one heard this baby screaming??
I can hear the kid down the street who's INSIDE his house....from INSIDE my house. No windows or doors open on either of our houses.
,,, it seems judgement is passed easily enough after all, but not on those who've murdered.
Amazing when one considers the individual in CA who smelled the smoke of the cigarette from a person in his house (windows closed) three blocks away.
"At the time we closed the case, we had been assured that Mom was stabilized
The comments in bold are the ones that bother me... it speaks of drugs rather than treating the hormonal issues that cause PPD in the first place -- in other words a placebo treatment instead of treating the cause of the problem...
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