An inside look into patterns and potential prevention plans for one of the most hotly sensationalized crimes A special kind of horror is reserved for mothers who kill their children. Cases such as those of Susan Smith, who drowned her two young sons by driving her car into a lake, and Melissa Drexler, who disposed of her newborn baby in a restroom at her prom, become media sensations. Unfortunately, in addition to these high-profile cases, hundreds of mothers kill their children in the United States each year. The question most often asked is, why? What would drive a mother to kill her own child? Those who work with such cases, whether in clinical psychology, social services, law enforcement or academia, often lack basic understandings about the types of circumstances and patterns which might lead to these tragic deaths, and the social constructions of motherhood which may affect women's actions. These mothers oftentimes defy the myths and media exploitation of them as evil, insane, or lacking moral principles, and they are not a homogenous group. In obvious ways, intervention strategies should differ for a teenager who denies her pregnancy and then kills her newborn and a mother who kills her two toddlers out of mental illness or to further a relationship. A typology is needed to help us to understand the different cases that commonly occur and the patterns they follow in order to make possible more effective prevention plans. Mothers Who Kill Their Children draws on extensive research to identify clear patterns among the cases of women who kill their children, shedding light on why some women commit these acts. The characteristics the authors establish will be helpful in creating more meaningful policies, more targeted intervention strategies, and more knowledgeable evaluations of these cases when they arise.

This compelling and unique collection of critical and creative work assesses for the first time cultural, literary, legal and historical representations and narratives about mothers who kill and filicide. The idea of a mother killing her child to many presents the greatest taboo, and the most disturbing and distressing aspect of maternal experience. In Toni Morrison's 1987 novel Beloved, escaped slave mother Sethe addresses her daughter Beloved whom she murdered out of desperation, in order to avoid her returning to a life of slavery and sexual abuse. Sethe reflects, "I'll explain to her, even though I don't have to. Why I did it. How if I hadn't killed her she would have died and that is something I could not bear to happen to her. When I explain it she'll understand." This book goes beyond Morrison's widely known literary portrayal, in order to investigate a range of other, less known but no less challenging, examinations of maternal filicide. Have mothers who kill inevitably been portrayed as monsters in cultural representations? Or are there certain contexts that may urge us to reevaluate maternal behavior? And how might we counter the misogynist narratives surrounding maternal

1. Introduction2. Neonaticide, infanticide, and filicide research: What do we know?3. Classification of maternal filicide: What do we know?4. Risk analysis and the Maternal Filicide Risk Matrix5. Prevention and Risk Intervention Points6. Detached mother-Denial type: Cathy7. Detached mother-Ambivalent type: Edna8. Detached mother-Resentful type: Francine9. Detached mother-Exhausted type: Glenda10. Abusive/neglectful mother-Recurrent type: Harriet11. Abusive/neglectful mother-Reactive type: Janet12. Abusive/neglectful mother-Inadequate type: Kaye13. Psychotic/depressed mother-Delusional type: Ba.

Maternal infanticide, or the murder of a child in its first year of life by its mother, elicits sorrow, anger, horror, and outrage. But the perpetrator is often a victim, too. The editor of this revealing work asks us to reach beyond rage, stretch the limits of compassion, and enter the minds of mothers who kill their babies -- with the hope that advancing the knowledge base and stimulating inquiry in this neglected area of maternal-infant research will save young lives. Written to help remedy today's dearth of up-to-date, research-based literature, this unique volume brings together a multidisciplinary group of 17 experts -- scholars, clinicians, researchers, clinical and forensic psychiatrists, pediatric psychoanalysts, attorneys, and an epidemiologist -- who focus on the psychiatric perspective of this tragic cause of infant death. This comprehensive, practical work is organized into four parts for easy reference: Part I presents historical and epidemiological data, including a compelling discussion of the contrasting legal views of infanticide in the United States, United Kingdom, and other Western countries, a review of the latest statistics on maternal infanticide, and a discussion of the problems of underreporting and the lack of available documentation. Part II covers the psychiatric, psychological, cultural, and biological underpinnings of infanticide, detailing how to identify, evaluate, and treat postpartum psychiatric disorders. The authors explore clinical diagnosis, symptom recognition, risk factors, biological precipitants, and alternative motives, such as cultural infanticide. Chapter 3, developed to assist the attorney or mental health professional in understanding the implications of postpartum psychiatric illness as they relate to infanticide, presents a sensitive and thorough inquiry into infanticidal ideation. Part III focuses on contemporary legislation, criminal defenses, and disparate treatment in U.S. law and compares U.S. law with the U.K.'s model of probation and treatment. Chapter 8 is an especially useful resource for the attorney or expert psychiatric witness preparing for an infanticide/neonaticide case in the criminal court system. Part IV discusses clinical experience with mothers as perpetrators and countertransference in therapy, the range of mother-infant interactions (from healthy to pathological), and methods of early intervention and prevention. This balanced perspective on a highly emotional issue will find a wide audience among psychiatric and medical professionals (child, clinical, and forensic psychiatrists and psychologists; social workers; obstetricians/gynecologists and midwives; nurses; and pediatricians), legal professionals (judges, attorneys, law students), public health professionals, and interested laypersons.

In September, 2008, Roanoke, Texas, police discovered a house of horrors: poisoned pudding, a bathtub set up for electrocution, a bloody butcher knife, and a hank of chopped-off hair. The worst was yet to come… Days before, seventeen-year-old Jennifer Bailey, her thirteen-year-old brother David, and their friends Paul Henson and Merrilee White had made a gruesome pact: they’d kill their parents, steal their cars and credit cards, and flee to Canada. Paul and Merrilee’s parents thwarted their fates, but Jennifer and David’s mother Susan Bailey wasn’t so lucky. When the devoted mother returned home from work, her two children and their friend Paul took turns stabbing her and slicing her throat. When they were done, they fled in Susan’s car. They made it as far as South Dakota before being arrested. What really led them to make such a despicable pact? The answers would cast a disturbing new light on the way we see the all-American family, our neighbors, our children—and the society that nurtured them. Now an Investigation Discovery TV Special

In this fascinating, informative, and entertaining collection, internationally acclaimed, award-winning author Colm Tóibín turns his attention to the intricacies of family relationships in literature and writing. In pieces that range from the importance of aunts (and the death of parents) in the English nineteenth-century novel to the relationship between fathers and sons in the writing of James Baldwin and Barack Obama, Colm Tóibín illuminates not only the intimate connections between writers and their families but also, with wit and rare tenderness, articulates the great joy of reading their work. In the piece on the Notebooks of Tennessee Williams, Tóibín reveals an artist "alone and deeply fearful and unusually selfish" and one profoundly tormented by his sister's mental illness. Through the relationship between W.B. Yeats and his father, or Thomas Mann and his children, or J.M. Synge and his mother, Tóibín examines a world of family relations, richly comic or savage in its implications. In Roddy Doyle's writing on his parents we see an Ireland reinvented. From the dreams and nightmares of John Cheever's journals Tóibín makes flesh this darkly comic misanthrope and his relationship to his wife and his children.The majority of these pieces were previously published in the Londron Review of Books, the New York Review Review of Books, and the Dublin Review. Three of the thirteen pieces have never appeared before.

Lauri Taylor was just your average suburban PTA mom and marketing exec. Then tragedy struck. When her mother is found dead in Mexico, Lauri finds herself embarking on a journey to uncover the identity of her mother’s murderer—but what she finds isn’t what she was expecting. With the help of famed FBI profiler Candice DeLong, Lauri works to unearth the secrets buried in her mother’s death. Key evidence comes to light—and a shocking revelation unfolds. Lauri Taylor’s memoir The Accidental Truth: What My Mother’s Murder Investigation Taught Me About Life is a profound narrative of true crime, family bonds, and the grief of sudden death. Achingly intimate, The Accidental Truth chronicles Lauri’s personal journey as she empowers herself with truth, finds the courage and compassion to forgive herself and her mother, and eventually learns to let go.