[Azred]

News story is here.

In short, Deanna Laney, a 39-year-old mother living in Tyler, TX received messages from God that she should kill her children--on Mother's Day Weekend last year--to test her faith and become a witness after the end of the world. Thus, she beat the brains out of two of her children with a rock and maimed the third in his crib.

What the f***?! [img]graemlins/madhell.gif[/img]

from the article: Defense attorneys argued that insanity was the only reason why a deeply religious mother who homeschooled her children would kill two of them and maim another without so much as a tear.

Just as with Andrea Yates, why hasn't anyone yet seen that "deeply religious" people who never get out of the house seem to have a higher probability of mental disturbances? Being cooped up with little children 24 hours a day would drive anyone crazy.
Belle has been criticized at times for being a working mother, as if that is somehow less desirable than being a stay-at-home mother. Well, I haven't seen any news stories of working mothers killing their children, so which is worse?

Apparently no one, including her husband of 19 years Keith, her brother who is a minister, her friends, other relatives, or acquaintances from her church saw that she had any mental problems. Bulls****! [img]graemlins/idontagreeatall.gif[/img] Nobody wanted to do anything because they were more worried about the stigma of "mental illness" than potential harm to either herself or her children.

Anyway, she will now be committed to a state psychiatric hospital and, pending medical evaluations, will eventually be released. [img]graemlins/erm.gif[/img] This could be within 5 years, at which point she will probably stop taking her medication--"I'm all better now"--and relapse into her psychotic dissocative state. Joy.

The second worst thing about this tragedy is the overall defense strategy: God told me to do it. [img]graemlins/saywhat.gif[/img] If you don't want to take responsibility for your actions, just become deeply religious and claim that God was testing your faith. Simple.

[ 04-04-2004, 10:43 AM: Message edited by: Azred ]