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Original poster

Killer father felt left out after his baby girl arrived.

124 replies

Animation · 07/05/2011 09:37

Mark Bruton Young smothered his six month-old daughter, having researched the ways he could get rid of her, and whilst apparently suffering post natal depression.

He was also angry with his wife and wished they could go back to being a couple.

Is it post natal depression or sociopathy?

OP posts:
stressheaderic · 07/05/2011 09:41

I have been following this case in the news this week and think it's terribly sad.
I'd suggest a bit of both really - who can know what was going through his mind.

WhoWhoWhoWho · 07/05/2011 09:45

My abusive ex told me very openly and honestly that he felt jealous of our infant son - he was not depressed, just an appalling person. Obviously I do not know the details of the case in the news.

Original poster
Animation · 07/05/2011 09:52

I think you'd have to be sociopathic to have planned to kill the baby for some time, and then to actually go through with it.

OP posts:
BarbarianMum · 07/05/2011 11:26
Pixel · 07/05/2011 15:37

I don't think I could even look at him, let alone stand by him. To research how to kill a baby without getting found out? Don't think you can blame that on 'PND', it comes down to being totally heartless. I'm sure lots of men struggle with the changes a baby brings and can feel 'left out' but they either leave or grow up, they don't spend months planning a murder.

Apart from anything else, if I was his wife I'd be worrying about him smothering me in my sleep if he decided I was surplus to requirements. Much simpler than a messy divorce...

LoopyLoopsBettyBoops · 07/05/2011 15:40

Where does it leave your marriage? No future kids I hope.

expatinscotland · 07/05/2011 15:44

PND, my arse. He researched how to get rid of her for months. He was trying to figure out a way to make it look like cot death.

As someone who did have PND, this pisses me off.

There have been very sad cases of people who had post-natal psychosis and killed their children, Andrea Yates and Dena Schroeder spring to mind, but they didn't spend months planning it and research how to cover it up to look like an accident because they were insane, not sociopaths.

This pair don't deserve any more children. I hope they've both been sterilised.

dittany · 07/05/2011 17:16

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Laquitar · 07/05/2011 17:23

Yes, women get PND because their body and their hormones are messed up. Men dont get 'male PND' , it is just another stupid trendy term.

dittany · 07/05/2011 17:25

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

davidtennantsmistress · 07/05/2011 17:31

aside from him how can any more stand by her husband after he's killed her child? how??

davidtennantsmistress · 07/05/2011 17:33

mother*

MollysChamber · 07/05/2011 17:39

I think I would smother him in his sleep. Seriously.

BertieBotts · 07/05/2011 17:42

Because most likely he's controlling and possessive to be that jealous in the first place, and you can see from this he's careful to hide his tracks. I'd be extremely surprised if there wasn't some level of emotional abuse (and probably a pretty severe level, unless she's a sociopath too) happening in their marriage. It's stockholm syndrome or the same thing as the many, many women we see posting here whose husbands have done horrific things but they can't leave because they "love him" and "he's nice sometimes".

davidtennantsmistress · 07/05/2011 17:59

I don't doubt that bertie, however surely a mothers instinct kicks in to over rule even that?

BertieBotts · 07/05/2011 18:08

You would hope so :( Makes me wonder what kind of hell she is living in.

BarbarianMum · 07/05/2011 18:12

You know what Bertie, she probably blames herself Sad. If she could have settled the baby quicker, if she had just given him more attention...

I'm guessing, of course.

confuddledDOTcom · 07/05/2011 18:15

Men can suffer from PND (maybe not so hormonal as women but it's still a life changing event which are a cause of depression) and even Birth Trauma (PTSD after birth) but depression is not normally a reason to murder someone! Puerperal psychosis could be a condition that leads to murder of a child but I can't see that men could get that and it wouldn't be premeditated, it would be a "Quick! There's the devil, kill it!" moment.

This man was in his right mind enough to premeditate murder for awhile, looking up how to do it without detection. He's probably got something going on, but not depression.

kalo12 · 07/05/2011 18:17

i had severe pnd for a year. did not kill anyone. I hate these stories where father's kill their children in custody battles / jealousy etc

LittleWhiteWolf · 07/05/2011 18:20

I'm in the camp of if he was planning it for months and it wasn't a snap decision (not that that would have been much better) then it can't be excused by any kind of mental illness. I could be naive here, but thats my gut reaction.

expatinscotland · 07/05/2011 18:21

What Bertie said. In the nearly 7 years I've been on here, there have been a few threads in which the OP or someone they loved was involved with an individual as manipulative and controlling as this.

There is a lot of evidence of premeditation leaking out even now. This marks someone who was thinking quite clearly, not a person with postpartum psychosis, who is, by nature, psychotic.

Original poster
Animation · 08/05/2011 07:30

"The picture of him with his wife is sick-making, the way he's got his head resting on hers. I think she looks like she's thinking about how she can get away."

A nauseating attempt to give the impression of oness I thought. She looks sucked dry.

OP posts:
Whaddayouknow · 08/05/2011 07:34

There are some truly inhuman creatures on this planet. And that's a photo of two of them. They clearly deserve each other.

mrsravelstein · 08/05/2011 07:45

wish i hadn't read the link. can't think of another word for him than 'evil'. poor child, and poor mother.

differentnameforthis · 08/05/2011 09:27

The court heard that after Harriet?s death in June 2009, he was arrested on suspicion of poisoning her but returned to work in mid-September - and kept on searching on his computer. Some searches on his PC included ?hard drive recovery? and ?hard drive forensic analysis?. Mr Dunkels said: ?Subsequent forensic analysis of his second work computer showed he had used it to access the internet and search for what police enquiries might reveal about his behaviour.?

Does that sound like someone under the grip of PND? No, sounds like someone trying to cover their tracks.

It's insulting to say that he had PND!