The cases of Andrea Yates, on trial in the drownings of her children in Houston last summer, and Marilyn Lemak, convicted in December of smothering her three children in Naperville, were mystifying enough to many observers.
Then, last Thursday, Ellen Feinberg, who friends say had given up her pediatric practice to spend more time with her two sons, was charged with stabbing them in the family’s home in Champaign. The 10-year-old died that day.
When mothers kill their children, the crimes are so incomprehensible, society often turns away. “How could she do it?” people ask. “How could a mother kill her child?”
Based on cases that have run their course through the justice system, Michelle Oberman and Cheryl Meyer set out to answer those questions in their book, “Mothers Who Kill Their Children: Understanding the Acts of Moms from Susan Smith to the Prom Mom” (New York University Press, $15). Oberman, a law professor at DePaul University, and Meyer, a lawyer and associate professor of psychology at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, studied hundreds of mothers who killed their children during the ’90s.
The title refers to Susan Smith, who strapped her two sons in their car seats, rolled her car into a South Carolina lake and let them drown in 1994, and Melissa Drexler, who gave birth in a restroom at her New Jersey high school prom in 1997, then threw her infant into a trash bin and returned to the dance.
It’s too soon to draw many conclusions about the more recent cases, Oberman says. Generally speaking, though, the two authors believe that the incidence of mothers killing their children is on the upswing.
“It’s become something of an epidemic, it happens so often,” says Oberman, who lives in Evanston.
About 1,000 children were reported killed by their mothers in the ’90s, according to FBI reports. But many deaths are never even reported, the authors say, as when the body of a newborn is secretly disposed of in a city dump and never found.
The causes can range from psychosis, which may have been relevant for Feinberg, to the conditions in many American homes today, which may have been part of the problem for Yates, they say.
“Thirty years ago, you didn’t raise your child alone,” Oberman says. “You had your mom, your aunties to fall back on. It’s the taboo nobody wants to whisper: Motherhood is exhausting and also really hard work. And it’s especially hard if you’re on your own.”
Meyer and Oberman don’t claim mere loneliness will push a woman to kill her children. Feinberg, for instance, volunteered extensively, and friends spoke highly of her.
But often, the authors say, alcohol, drugs or mental illness, and motherhood, particularly single motherhood or young motherhood, can be a lethal combination. Meanwhile, neighbors and relatives often look the other way, even when there are plenty of warning signs that a family is in deep trouble.
In an interview, Oberman and Meyer pointed to Yates, the 37-year-old Houston woman who is accused of killing her five children. Her profile: Beyond having suffered severe postpartum depression, she was home-schooling her kids, her father was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, she twice had attempted suicide. Neighbors and her mother-in-law knew she was depressed, and she had only one half-hour a week for herself, Oberman says. She had been hospitalized and treated with anti-psychotic medications. “Nevertheless, her husband went off to work every day, leaving her at home with the kids, as if nothing was amiss,” Oberman says.
Yates was so mentally ill it was only a matter of time until she harmed herself or her children, the authors say. “Americans have a penchant for looking for an individual to blame for societal ills,” Oberman says. “It’s easier just to blame the mother, but we’re saying `Wait a minute. There are lots of people with blood on their hands.’ “
Need for compassion
Meyer adds, “We as a society have failed to be compassionate to the individual.”
The authors say that their emphasis on compassion is often criticized. Many feel little sympathy for Susan Smith, for instance, who initially blamed her children’s disappearance on a carjacking. Prosecutors said she wanted to be rid of her children because they were getting in the way of a love affair. And in the Lemak case, prosecutors said she was angry with her estranged husband, David Lemak, who had been dating someone else.
DuPage County State’s Attorney Joseph Birkett, whose office prosecuted the Lemak case, says, “I would never suggest it is inappropriate for a person to feel compassion.”
Still, he says, the Lemak children and their mother’s motives must be considered. Birkett will seek a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole at an April hearing.
“What was motivating Lemak was revenge and hatred toward her husband,” he says. “That doesn’t mean she wasn’t suffering from depression and it doesn’t mean I think depression should be dealt with lightly.”
In the Feinberg case, many have spoken compassionately of the mother. But that tide could change, Oberman says.
“It’s too soon to know how she’ll be treated at trial,” Oberman says.
Assigning responsibility
Meyer and Oberman say that nowhere in their book do they write that women shouldn’t take responsibility in the cases they studied. “But what we’re saying is that we all have responsibility for these families and what happens to them,” Meyer says.
The focus should be on prevention, right from birth of the child, Oberman says.
“Doctors, nurses and nurse practitioners should start getting trained in recognizing post-partum depression and post-partum psychosis,” she says. “Doctors should ask new mothers, `How are you handling this? Do you have any support?’ We need to get away from the stiff upper lip.”
The authors suggest the establishment of pediatric health centers that would target newborns and children up to age 3–the age group that suffers most from neglect. A better system of screening mothers at risk should be developed, say Oberman and Meyer.
Young mothers should be mentored by more experienced women, they add. Many young mothers aren’t mature enough to be good parents.
In their book, Oberman and Meyer recount the case of Jennie Bain Ducker, who was 21 and living in Tennessee in 1995 when she left her two sons, ages 2 and 1, in her car while she spent a summer night in her boyfriend’s motel room. Ducker strapped the boys in their car seats, propped up bottles so they could drink and locked the car’s doors. As the sun came up, the temperature inside the car rose to about 120 degrees. The children were dead on arrival at a hospital.
Like many other young women who allowed their children to die through neglect, Ducker moved from adolescence to parenting “with little, if any, time to establish a solid sense of self,” Oberman and Meyer write.
This group of mothers usually faces harsh punishment, the authors say. Ducker was acquitted of murder but convicted on abuse charges and sentenced to 18 years in prison.
The authors say that meting out harsh punishment won’t deter the killing.
“We might feel better, like we’ve staked out a position, that what these women have done is wrong,” Oberman says. “But we’ve actually done nothing to protect children.”
The authors point to British law, which stipulates that women who kill their children can be charged with no higher crime than manslaughter. They’re frequently placed in psychiatric care instead of prison.
Punishment in the U.S. ranges widely; the country needs better guidelines for dealing with these crimes, the authors say.
After interviewing 40 women who are imprisoned on charges of killing their children, Meyer found those who have already served lengthy terms have admitted their crimes and are remorseful.
“They beat themselves up more than anyone else could ever do,” she says.
Dr. Laura Miller, chief of women’s mental health services at the University of Illinois at Chicago, says that women who kill their children are often suffering from a “potentially treatable mental illness,” so getting them into “programs could help prevent new crimes.”
Stigma of mental illness
But, she emphasized, many women are afraid to acknowledge their own mental illness because of the social stigma. “And they’re afraid the child welfare system will become involved in a punitive, rather than therapeutic manner,” Miller says. “In many cases, it’s not that they’ve done anything yet, but their impulses are frightening them.”
Many programs that these hesitant women might be more willing to participate in are not open to them for financial reasons.
Anger management skills might be particularly helpful to young, single mothers, says Dr. Emil Coccaro, professor of psychiatry at the University of Chicago. “But it’s not therapy, so HMOs don’t cover it. It’s considered training, so many people can’t afford it,” he says.
The state could fund it, but there seems little inclination among public officials to provide subsidies, he notes. “But what is the function of government–isn’t it to protect people?” Coccaro asks. “And children are the most defenseless of all.”
Meyer and Oberman plan a second book about programs to help mothers at greatest risk of harming their children.
“When you understand a subject as unpalatable and as predictable as this, you’ve inherited a responsibility,” Meyer says. “We see these deaths as so preventable. We can’t walk away.”
