Mother and 2 children found dead - suicide/murder

[ShaggingZumbaStylee]

It sounds like she was really struggling, but I find it so difficult to understand why she killed her children with her.

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This topic really brings out the unfeeling, unimaginative side to people doesn't it?

Where have I called you names? I think you're wrong. I think your posts display a particularly nasty frame of mind that I am shocked to find you hold. That's an opinion, not an exercise in name calling.

I feel like doing a MNHQ Ahem here :)

Emotions are high because of the nature of this murder and suicide. Perhaps instead of an emotional angry exchange ...agree to differ in your outlooks. LtEve holds very strong views which are not waived by any comments. No point in anyone trying to change that and points have been made by both sides.

It's tragic. We all agree on that

Surely we all have the ability to see outside of our own little box in a case like this. It is something so horrendous that the perpetrator can only have been in an absolutely psychotic state and there is no way you can relate to that if you have never been there but there just times when you have to look at things a different way. My brother suffered a period of psychosis several years ago and he was convinced he had to get rid of all his possessions or he would never recover and he threw everything he owned (literally) in the river. H ehas long since had treatment and even now says he just felt he had to

I cannot understand the anger. I am not thinking insode a box I am just saying that sometimes when someone acts completely against societal norm it is not something we can judge

I'm angry but I feel anger towards the people who let her down.

I'm not angry at a woman who has twice tried to kill herself.

I am just saying that sometimes when someone acts completely against societal norm it is not something we can judge

My brother was murdered. The man that murdered him was acting 'completely against the societal norm'.

Too right I judge him. I hate him. I hope that he meets a horrible, painful and lasting end. I will celebrate when he is dead, and then maybe piss on his grave.

My brother was a grown man with a family of his own. But he was still my mothers child. Her firstborn. Her son.

But at least he lived. At least he had a chance to live his life in the way he chose - and his death was relatively painless. Those boys didn't even have that.

It's clearly a horrible tragedy. Poor woman and poor children. She was clearly extremely vulnerable - what look like previous suicide attempts, a victim of violence... she desperately needed help and sadly it doesn't seem to have been there.

The way in which this mother "chose" (which I use loosely if she was disturbed in the mind) to kill her children was horrific. If she felt that things were so bad that she had to take her children with her, she could have done so in a way in which they did not have to suffer.

I'm sorry. I have very little sympathy for her even if she was in a desperate place. The way she killed her children, I don't really care to understand her plight. It is her poor angels who deserve our sympathy.

LtEve, I'm very sorry about your brother. As someone said up thread, we all come to this thread carrying our own experiences. I can now understand why you feel the way you do about this case.

Someone very close to me was killed in a car accident. A 17 year old beautiful girl with all her life in front of her. Any thread about speeding drivers brings me out, all guns blazing. I have pure anger towards people who speed or drive dangerously. It's all very understandable.

Why is she a 'poor' women? She killed her children. Realistically social services should have got those children out of there.

But SS dont do they... They give chance after chance to people who make the most appaling decisions and let them do it again and again. If the partner had done this would we be saying the same thing. Somehow I dont think so.

I think a lot of these types of situations is down to poor mental health care and lack of support for those that are struggling with stress and mental health issues or DV.

Time and time again we see that there are red flags all over the place after the fact, which would have saved not only the children, but the parent as well. When my H had mental health problems, it took over 6 months to get counselling. They just handed him some antidepressants and turned him loose. It was not pretty.

Perhaps it's time to call for better mental health care and support, rather than endlessly arguing over whether or not she is evil.

Personally, if MNHQ was going to do a really worthwhile campaign, this would be it.

I read an article today which said she had tried to kill herself before, the children went briefly into care then were returned. It didn't sound like she had any help or support. I think she must have felt utterly helpless, utterly adrift and by now knew that no one would help her.

So I don't wish her burning in hell.

And i dont understand why our own our own personal tragedies are a justification or excuse for stripping ourselves of any compassion for others.

I bet every single person on this thread has had to face tragedy in some form or other.

I wouldn't want some of you to judge me when I have been at my lowest.

But I think not even acknowledging it is wrong to kill, especially children, which seems to be how these tragedies are reported, is not right either.

Surely we can say that something is wrong as well as terribly sad, and as well as recognising that there are reasons behind things happening too. And therefore that support could be improved to prevent future tragedies.

Personally I find the lack of recognition of any middle ground frustrating.

I think everyone knows it is wrong to kill children. Doesn't that go without saying? But when you look at a terrible tragedy like this, you tend to ask 'why?' And asking why is probably more constructive than slagging off one of the victims. Maybe we will discover something that can help to avoid future tragedies.

I once heard a war reporter talking about her experiences. She explained that one crisis she was covering, I think in East Timor, mothers were throwing their babies over a razor-wire fence into the UN compound. They were desperate - the knew soldiers were coming, that civilians would be slaughtered, and throwing their babies was perhaps the only chance they had to protect them. Many of those babies were killed in that compound. Does anyone feel like judging those mothers? If not, why not?

Is it because they were acting in some ways rationally in a desperate situation? Perhaps someone who is suicidal believes they are acting rationally to protect their children. It may not look rational to an outsider, that's because we aren't suicidal and suffering from altered reality, or a reality that is too painful for an onlooker to understand.

I seem to be on a different thread. I haven't read anyone to say that killing children is ever 'right' - I thought there was pretty universal recognition that it is shocking and terrible.

My problem is the automatic assumption that this mother is an evil bitch who should burn in hell.

Because it is those assumptions that further stigmatise mental illness, that drives sufferers underground and makes others scared or disinclined to help them.

I feel sorry for anyone who is so desperate or evil or stupid that they think killing their children is an option. That doesn't mean I congratulate them.

Perfectly said spero.

Fair enough MrsDeV.

I guess we all bring whatever insight we can find to something like this in an attempt to make some sense of it, at least for ourselves.

No one who is posting on this thread knows anymore than the next person. No one has anymore insight than the next person

Very true MrsDV, we only 'know' what we have read. It is the'facts' of the case that have made me angry, maybe more will come out in time that will soften my views, I don't know, none of us do.

She was that desperate that it seemed like her only option... she is not 'evil', she was badly failed by the man who should have loved & protected her & by our society. How can you blame a woman for doing the only thing she thought would protect her & her children?!

edam Tue 16-Jul-13 18:42:52
"I think everyone knows it is wrong to kill children. Doesn't that go without saying? But when you look at a terrible tragedy like this, you tend to ask 'why?'"

What worries me is that if it had been a father committing suicide with his children, we don't tend to ask those questions- at least not on Mumsnet. There is very little tendency to excuse a man in that situation on grounds of mental health or desperation: however little is known about the actual case, the consensus is usually that he is an evil bastard who does it specifically to get at the mother.