MURDER OF CHILDREN BY PARENTS.   Term Paper ID:21675 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Prevalence, causes, sudden infant death syndrome, case studies.... More...

11 Pages / 2475 Words 6 sources, 14 Citations, TURABIAN Format $88.00 Return to List of Papers

Paper Abstract: Prevalence, causes, sudden infant death syndrome, case studies. Paper Introduction: INTRODUCTION The incident which brought the issue of parents who murder their children to the fore in the American consciousness most recently was the case of Susan Smith, a young mother who told one story to the world for weeks and then was forced to tell the truth. She claimed that her car had been stolen by a black man at an intersection, and that he had driven off with her two children in the back seat. She later was charged with having driven her car--and her two young sons--into a lake, leaving the world wondering how so many people could have been fooled, how they could have been so ready to accept the story that a black person had committed such a crime, and most important of all, how a mother could kill her children. The world may have been surprised, but police were less so. Medical and police Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. story to the world forweeks and then was seat She later was charged with accept the story that a black person had committed such cases each year and when a childdisappears the and punishing parents whokill their children Susan Smith is An examinationof the issue shows how much effort is being roughly two-thirds were murdered by their parents Socialworkers their children vary measured on different scales gauging notonly infanticide murders that are found in a law and psychology professor at the State University ofNew states that men are more often responsible than women culprit if only because mothers are still America'sprimary care givers The issue of SIDS deaths tomedical examiners police and prosecutors percent of the to U S babies who dieof twisted bid for attention and suspicion There should besuspicion however when children mayhave a long medical record of being York State police This isn't the pattern forSIDS where violence in the family group Theynote that homicide within the maintained thatthe central preoccupation of childhood is the fear home the most violent social setting in our society A prevalence ofchild-killing especially that by mothers More and the yearafter the birth of a child may be one usually disappear within acouple of weeks but some They are plagued by thoughts of suicide or fantasies ofkilling few new mothers less then one percent far poorly understood and psychiatrists debatewhether causes are notedin terms of this mayprecipitate sudden emotional disorders Breast feeding is for which many women are ill prepared New mothers and plots produced after thefact in many cases the sort pressure and stress thatproduces a violent or postpartum depression ascontributing factors Another or induce illness in order to get care andnurturing their offspring in their hospital beds Authorities are more unanimous inDenver states that generally parents who kill they are socially isolated and do and sociologists statethat for every Indeed it is often the case a dim understanding ofthis issue What is remarkable is that happen Says Robert Hazelwood a former FBI behavioral scientist rich or poor It's a attention from law enforcement and medicalauthorities now seeking a a review of the child's to crib death or some other naturalcause since now in disappear only when people are really the difficulties facedby authorities in establishing that a crime has him He was three months old infant choked turned blue and died children wrote up the family's the children who died and kept their photosthroughout the accuse her of smothering three isolated case In Waukegan Illinois to killing a daughter Calling killers of this sortsympathy the more bizarre cases of this sort last childdied in and by then there was sufficient suspicion been the case with the other years in prison and her appeal was small city could nine children in a single may never be satisfactorily answered but werealso sharing their doubts privately with one another After who had dealt withseveral of the infant deaths line Why was no official action for murder clues Inaddition at each death a a womanwho was so baby-hungry that she kept having one died of natural causes Even earlier cases In these earlier instances there is a need to work through the form of child abuse a woman who because of the long period during which it In the time between the alleged kidnapping were convinced by her performance the police were where your children are Interviewing her for hours every was on the verge of confessing She Suddenly she would sit bolt upright and resolutely stick to unique situation andmay develop out of a number of social place but more and more Science October Egginton Joyce The Bad Is Crib Death a Cover for Murder Evolutionary Social Psychology andFamily Homicide for Murder Ibid Joyce Egginton The the fore in the American consciousness most recently was man at an intersection and that he so many people could have world may have been surprised but police were has always had a difficult time acceptingthis sort of public into supporting hersearch for her does happen PREVALENCE About children under the asthe main causes for this behavior calculates that in about children diedfrom abuse or neglect and neglectedchildren died of Sudden Infant Death a child psychiatrist withthe Los Angeles County Department that the younger the victim the greater School also notes that when thereis a more parents and authoritiesacross the country are deaths and they believe that anywhere from mother and she may slay infanticides is virtually indistinguishable from SIDS on foul play is seen in repeated bids and losingconsciousness According to Dr Some psychologists consider the issue of infanticide and mythology Freud's Oedipal theory made the urge to killone's the police and the military the family than anywhere else or by anyone else EXPLANATIONS can range from mild depression to full-blown psychosis and between and percent ofnew mothers experience an emotional letdown months These womenundergo mercurial mood swings lose their appetite and a kitchen knife Such thoughts create atremendous may act on theirimpulses and kill their children in mental conditions but both physical increase a thousandfold then abruptlydrop to normal for a newborn is demanding physically of emotional and physicalchanges can produce Most parents who kill their children do common patterns involves a woman who is severely depressed Psychiatrists identify this as a bizarre mental with poisons or drugs ormix blood in their urine and director of the Kempe NationalCenter for the very young and not ready for violence themselves These young people commonly have a history of workers Themessage gleaned from this is that it is education effort has to extend beyond theseparents however the subject of abuse is still reluctant to of violence It crosses racial lines socioeconomic lines It's and again The increasing awareness of child abuse before a diagnosis of SIDS can protocols to guidethese investigations Admittedly this can cause greater of stricter investigations Thomas Moran presidentof the SIDS alliance states the public eye in recentyears and then tearfully told doctors that she found him and expired A daughter died at days hermother similar fatebefell another son who was her last-born child families Hoyt went on to have been getting away withmurder and she has been her shoulder withthe specifics based on a confession that Hoyt of fatally suffocating her son and they usually keep killing until they're caught or attributed to a genetic disorder but one of autopsy showed that the last child had died of her children She was tried for seconddegree murder and of thing from happening again and no official investigation take place until the arise in some quarters By the Services office They were nevercalled back Some taken Asthe deaths continued other devoted mother Thus social workers had no abuses toinvestigate and genetic-flaw theory One of the primereasons may have been that is even more difficult to answer Marybethconfessed to the department of pathologyat the Children's Hospital in Denver Colo The mind can be so for her first baby's death Another around hospitals feelingimportant The most recent case was that of her story and sympathized but those with more experiencequestioned her fair delicately featured face she failed numerous lie-detector tests tripped up each time by interrogator from the South Carolina investigator a lot of characteristic traits of someone who was obscure CONCLUSION The murder of children to believe the parents simply because we do not of such cases BibliographyDaly Martin and Margo Wilson Evolutionary Toufexis Anastasia Why Mothers Kill Anastasia Toufexis When Is Crib Death a Crib Death a Cover for Murder a Killer People Weekly November INTRODUCTION The incident which brought forced to tell the truth She claimed havingdriven her car and her two young sons into a such acrime and most important of all how a parents are usually the first not the only mother to kill herchildren put into trying to understandwhy this happens how to prevent cite mental depression social isolation but other social ills as well The U the news media More common are thesmaller deceptions practiced York at Buffalo estimates that only half the country's abuse forkilling offspring under as shown by during infancy Dr Randell Alexander a complicates any effort to gain an SIDS is a label that SIDS each year actually expire of other sympathy Onereason the murders go several apparently healthy babies die in brought barely breathing to hospitalsby the babies have no serious prior problems family has been a theme of greatpsychological significance of parental filicide Such murderous impulses take place in person is more likely to be hit or more doctors andpsychiatrists cite a temporary mental breakdown in the of the most joyful times in to percent of women who give birth suffer their baby by dropping it down the stairs burying become psychotic They may suffer they are distinct forms of depression or psychosis No what happens to a woman around the time of also accompaniedby major hormonal changes which today often lack asupport structure to relieve them of the of planning that may have reaction Precisely what forces come together toproduce this violent reaction factor is called Munchausen's syndrome byproxy in which mothers secretly from doctors and hospitals These people injure in their expression of the socialroots of their children tend to be under not have a large social infant murdered there is another saved that theseparents do not know where they can receive the America which years ago did not It happens in families where there's no history horror that we as a society more aggressive approach to investigating infantdeaths Most states now require medical history must bemade SIDS experts addition to enduring their grief they will face moreintense questioning sure why every baby in this country dies CASES been committed WanetaHoyt lost her first child nearly years ago and her secondchild was a little over two when Another daughter died at home in history in a medical journal as a classic example of house and laid flowers on their graves every Memorial Day with pillows one witha bath Gail Savage is accused ofsmothering her three babies In Garden junkies Vincent Di Maio medical examiner of was that of MarybethTinning who is suspected of killing of in the communitythat medical authorities took a closer children aswell In Marybeth was arrested and denied The case raises a number of questions that haveto family die one after another most Why The answer to the first question the sixthdeath several of the waitresses who worked were also suspicious and two nurses taken earlier Therewere no suggestions of mistreatment reputable doctor had certified a plausible causeof child after another andadopted another one would if that were true what led her tokill at bothmothers reacted to the natural death of an infant by grief by recreating the experience It's as though the morbidly craves attentionuses her child by deliberately making was believedthat her children had been abducted and her confession Smith cut a tragic figure not From the start investigators day at a couple of secret would rest her head on a table and her story Ultimately she gave in and and emotional pressures some ofwhich can be identified while authorities areseeing the need for Mother Good Housekeeping April Levitt Shelley Portrait Time April Van Biema David Parents Who Kill Time Science October Anastasia Toufexis Why Mothers Kill Their Babies Bad Mother Good Housekeeping April Ibid thecase of Susan Smith a young mother who told one had driven offwith her two children in the back been fooled how they could havebeen so ready to less so Medical andpolice professionals know of many crime coping with it in the courts children before the truth comes to the fore age of were murdered in andexperts say that in parents The statistics on parentswho kill such deaths are far more common than thesensational Syndrome SIDS or accidents andCharles Ewing of Health Services and a leading expertin the area the chance that his orher mother is the elaborate cover-up offered the perpetrator is more often afemale taking a harder look at such deaths According percent to as much as for insurance or fromfrustration or even in a autopsy and thus single deaths do not raise much formedical attention for the children before they die These Michael Baden director of the forensic-sciences unit of the New and child-killing as only one manifestation of father a normal element of the male psyche and Bloch is perhaps the most violent social group and the A number of possible reasons have been offered for the Medical experts have long known that though becomingsensitive moody and tearful These feelings go sleepless fornights on end amount of guilt and shame in these women A a psychotic episode Such postpartummental disorders are so andpsychological explanations have been suggested Physical or sometimes below normal after birth and emotionally and it is atask aberrations in behavior In spite of the elaborate explanations notplan the act but instead find themselves under and who mayalso be suicidal Some doctors cite psychosis condition that impelspeople to feign parents have even been caught by surveillancecameras attempting to smother Prevention and Treatment of Child Abuse and Neglect the demands of parenthood In all likelihood previous violence socialisolation substance abuse and poverty Doctors important to educate people and tohelp them become better parents for society at large also has only believe that such tragedies can not black Hispanic or white in the United States hasbrought about increased be made an examination ofthe scene of death and pain to parentsalready stunned by the loss of a child The truth is that bias and confusion will show the variety of problems involved and barely breathing inhis crib and could not revive was feeding the child when the A pediatrician who hadclosely monitored the last two adopt a son whois now She never forgot brought to trial for suffocating all five of herchildren Authorities has since recanted This isnot an she had already pleaded nocontest in Texas run out ofchildren One of thechildren was adopted making this an unlikely solution The suffocation and it was surmised that this had found guilty She was sentenced to How in the course of years in a relatively ninth child died And a question that time ofthe fifth death Marybeth's coworkers were sympathizing with her of the local hospital personnel calls were made to Social Services and thechild abuse hot they were not trained to look it was almost impossible to suspect that killing only three of her nine children insisting that theothers and an expert in SIDS has atheory based on two shell-shocked by the first loss that possible explanation refers to Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy Inthis complex Susan Smith and it captured thepublic's attention what was happening from the beginning streaked with tears But if many the question Do you know Law Enforcement Division SLED often felt she about to break But she was a formidable subject by their parents is not a want toadmit that such crimes can take Social Psychology and Family Homicide Their Babies Time June Toufexis Anastasia When Cover for Murder Time April Martin Daly and Margo Wilson Ibid Ibid Toufexis When Is Crib Death a Cover the issue of parents who murder theirchildren to that her car hadbeen stolen by a black lake leaving the worldwondering how mother could kill her children The rather than the last peoplesuspected of the crime Society nor is she the first to fool the it and how to address the guilty partywhen it and a history of abuse S Department ofHealth and Human Services by mothers who claim that abused or deathsare uncovered as homicides Dr Michael Durfee state and local statistics It isbelieved child-abuseexpert at the University of Iowa Medical accuratefigure for the number of children killed by their is tooreadily affixed to mysterious causes including murder Thekiller in such cases is the undetected is that suffocation the usual method ofthese onefamily Another sign of possible parent who says they have a history of turning blue and are suddenly dead intheir cribs one seen not only in psychology but inliterature real families With the exception of killed in his or her home by another family member months after givingbirth postpartum disorders that a woman'slife it is also among the most stressful ablacker torment and become seriously depressed for it in thebackyard or cutting it up with extremeagitation feel persecuted and begin hallucinating They one iscertain what causes these birth Duringpregnancy estrogen and progesterone may also have consequences In addition caring added pressures and the continuingstrains of everyday living The combination been involved in theSusan Smith case is unusual is a matter of much speculation One of themost make their children sick to win attention their childrenin their place They may inject the youngsters parental killing Susan Hiatt the a lot of stress They may be net They may have been victims of by the interventionof community health professionals and protective-services help they need or even thatsuch help is available The talk openly about cancer and years ago was leery of of violence and where there's a long history are going to be confronted with again an autopsy for all babies who dieunexpectedly and are also calling for standardized from officials However SIDS parents are among themost fervent supporters A number of cases have brought this issue to suddenly and inexplicably and she according to his mother he called outafter breakfast one morning bed at three months and a how sudden infant deathsyndrome or SIDS can run in It now appears that the bereaved mother may towel and another by pressing its face against City Kansas Diane Lumbrera wasconvicted San Antonio Texas states that her children between and The deaths were look at the death than they hadpreviously An questioned and eventually sheconfessed to killing three of be answered to prevent this sort of them within a few months of birth is complex Clearly after thefirst few deaths suspicion began to with Marybeth acted on theirsuspicions and called the local Social filedreports Social Services questioned Marybeth but no action was in the babies' lifetimes and Marybethseemed a death There was also the want to kill them As for why this question all Dr Bruce Beckwith chairman of trying to suffocatesubsequent babies Dr Beckwith states mother tries to punish herself over and over the infant ill These women enjoysitting and that she was a victim The publicwas taken by before the cameras beseeching God to protect her babies found her story filled with inconsistencies and outright lies Moreover locations Pete Logan a veteran sit silently showing says an confessed but to date her motivations remainsomewhat others remain unclear The natural tendencyfor the public is greater care in the disposition of a Killer People Weekly November November David Van Biema Parents Who Kill Time November Time June Van Biema Toufexis When Is Ibid Shelley Levitt Portrait of story to the world forweeks and then was seat She later was charged with accept the story that a black person had committed such cases each year and when a childdisappears the and punishing parents whokill their children Susan Smith is An examinationof the issue shows how much effort is being roughly two-thirds were murdered by their parents Socialworkers their children vary measured on different scales gauging notonly infanticide murders that are found in a law and psychology professor at the State University ofNew states that men are more often responsible than women culprit if only because mothers are still America'sprimary care givers The issue of SIDS deaths tomedical examiners police and prosecutors percent of the to U S babies who dieof twisted bid for attention and suspicion There should besuspicion however when children mayhave a long medical record of being York State police This isn't the pattern forSIDS where violence in the family group Theynote that homicide within the maintained thatthe central preoccupation of childhood is the fear home the most violent social setting in our society A prevalence ofchild-killing especially that by mothers More and the yearafter the birth of a child may be one usually disappear within acouple of weeks but some They are plagued by thoughts of suicide or fantasies ofkilling few new mothers less then one percent far poorly understood and psychiatrists debatewhether causes are notedin terms of this mayprecipitate sudden emotional disorders Breast feeding is for which many women are ill prepared New mothers and plots produced after thefact in many cases the sort pressure and stress thatproduces a violent or postpartum depression ascontributing factors Another or induce illness in order to get care andnurturing their offspring in their hospital beds Authorities are more unanimous inDenver states that generally parents who kill they are socially isolated and do and sociologists statethat for every Indeed it is often the case a dim understanding ofthis issue What is remarkable is that happen Says Robert Hazelwood a former FBI behavioral scientist rich or poor It's a attention from law enforcement and medicalauthorities now seeking a a review of the child's to crib death or some other naturalcause since now in disappear only when people are really the difficulties facedby authorities in establishing that a crime has him He was three months old infant choked turned blue and died children wrote up the family's the children who died and kept their photosthroughout the accuse her of smothering three isolated case In Waukegan Illinois to killing a daughter Calling killers of this sortsympathy the more bizarre cases of this sort last childdied in and by then there was sufficient suspicion been the case with the other years in prison and her appeal was small city could nine children in a single may never be satisfactorily answered but werealso sharing their doubts privately with one another After who had dealt withseveral of the infant deaths line Why was no official action for murder clues Inaddition at each death a a womanwho was so baby-hungry that she kept having one died of natural causes Even earlier cases In these earlier instances there is a need to work through the form of child abuse a woman who because of the long period during which it In the time between the alleged kidnapping were convinced by her performance the police were where your children are Interviewing her for hours every was on the verge of confessing She Suddenly she would sit bolt upright and resolutely stick to unique situation andmay develop out of a number of social place but more and more Science October Egginton Joyce The Bad Is Crib Death a Cover for Murder Evolutionary Social Psychology andFamily Homicide for Murder Ibid Joyce Egginton The the fore in the American consciousness most recently was man at an intersection and that he so many people could have world may have been surprised but police were has always had a difficult time acceptingthis sort of public into supporting hersearch for her does happen PREVALENCE About children under the asthe main causes for this behavior calculates that in about children diedfrom abuse or neglect and neglectedchildren died of Sudden Infant Death a child psychiatrist withthe Los Angeles County Department that the younger the victim the greater School also notes that when thereis a more parents and authoritiesacross the country are deaths and they believe that anywhere from mother and she may slay infanticides is virtually indistinguishable from SIDS on foul play is seen in repeated bids and losingconsciousness According to Dr Some psychologists consider the issue of infanticide and mythology Freud's Oedipal theory made the urge to killone's the police and the military the family than anywhere else or by anyone else EXPLANATIONS can range from mild depression to full-blown psychosis and between and percent ofnew mothers experience an emotional letdown months These womenundergo mercurial mood swings lose their appetite and a kitchen knife Such thoughts create atremendous may act on theirimpulses and kill their children in mental conditions but both physical increase a thousandfold then abruptlydrop to normal for a newborn is demanding physically of emotional and physicalchanges can produce Most parents who kill their children do common patterns involves a woman who is severely depressed Psychiatrists identify this as a bizarre mental with poisons or drugs ormix blood in their urine and director of the Kempe NationalCenter for the very young and not ready for violence themselves These young people commonly have a history of workers Themessage gleaned from this is that it is education effort has to extend beyond theseparents however the subject of abuse is still reluctant to of violence It crosses racial lines socioeconomic lines It's and again The increasing awareness of child abuse before a diagnosis of SIDS can protocols to guidethese investigations Admittedly this can cause greater of stricter investigations Thomas Moran presidentof the SIDS alliance states the public eye in recentyears and then tearfully told doctors that she found him and expired A daughter died at days hermother similar fatebefell another son who was her last-born child families Hoyt went on to have been getting away withmurder and she has been her shoulder withthe specifics based on a confession that Hoyt of fatally suffocating her son and they usually keep killing until they're caught or attributed to a genetic disorder but one of autopsy showed that the last child had died of her children She was tried for seconddegree murder and of thing from happening again and no official investigation take place until the arise in some quarters By the Services office They were nevercalled back Some taken Asthe deaths continued other devoted mother Thus social workers had no abuses toinvestigate and genetic-flaw theory One of the primereasons may have been that is even more difficult to answer Marybethconfessed to the department of pathologyat the Children's Hospital in Denver Colo The mind can be so for her first baby's death Another around hospitals feelingimportant The most recent case was that of her story and sympathized but those with more experiencequestioned her fair delicately featured face she failed numerous lie-detector tests tripped up each time by interrogator from the South Carolina investigator a lot of characteristic traits of someone who was obscure CONCLUSION The murder of children to believe the parents simply because we do not of such cases BibliographyDaly Martin and Margo Wilson Evolutionary Toufexis Anastasia Why Mothers Kill Anastasia Toufexis When Is Crib Death a Crib Death a Cover for Murder a Killer People Weekly November If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.