mother keeps dead child for 2 years

While social services will take a hammering for this once again, I think that it's a sad reflection on modern society that a child can be dead for two years without anyone becoming suspicious or reporting it.

It's also strange that a crime like this can occur and people are quick to mention mental illness as a potential mitigating circumstance. To a degree, every serial killer/rapist/child abuser in history has had some kind of mental abnormality. That seems fairly logical. Does that mean that every Ted Bundy or Fr. Brendan Smyth should be handled with judicial kid gloves? While it's great that people are talking about mental health, and it's fantastic that the stigma surrounding depression is fading, there is a danger that evil is becoming more acceptable as a by-product of this. It's a tough balance to get right.

Cody Pomeray wrote: »

Well, he was out of the woman's life. That's a pretty strong indication of his innocence.

Very sad case, hard to know what to make of it. In a way, I can understand why, until a few decades ago, the media wouldn't report sensitive child deprivation stories like this. What purpose does it serve? I get the feeling it's only entertainment fodder.

Maybe the best thing to do would be to penalize social service workers or agencies where they are negligent, and leave this sort of thing out of the public gaze.

Although the tabloids are prurient ghouls, bringing this to public attention does place pressure on the social services and maybe even helps challenge the atomization of a society that doesn't notice a child drop below the radar in such a terrible manner.

I'm sorry but theres no way i could open that link. I'm sat here after putting our 5 month old down for the night, her two brothers, 5 and 3, are asleep clinging to their favorite teddys. Just by reading the headline i couldn't imagine what kind of monster exists to do that to an innocent child.

Femme_Fatale wrote: »

No. Merely mentioning it if it's relevant absolutely in no way implies there should be leniency towards the criminal. The alternative would be to ignore mental illness even if it's a factor in the crime, and that's hardly gonna help prevent such cases from occurring again.
I don't agree every person who commits an atrocious act is definitely mentally ill or an addict or had a terrible life though, but it's highly likely.

Candie wrote: »

No, I think there's a huge difference in recognising a factor and using it as an excuse.

We don't know if she was ill or bad (or what I feel might be most likely, both). And thats the point. We don't know.

Evil, if it exists, will never be acceptable and most people will struggle to see how it could be construed as a by-product of depression.

But where is the line drawn? I'm no psychologist, but I'm pretty confident that this woman wasn't mentally stable. However, I'm equally positive that every other evil doer is unbalanced. Just seems to me that "mental illness" is becoming the go to excuse for any heinous crime. At some point, we have to accept that terrible acts are terrible acts. Nothing can justify what this mother has done to her child.

KKkitty wrote: »

She smoked weed, drank alcohol and ordered a pizza after he died.

To be fair, mentally I'll people are capable of eating pizza and drinking.

Compu Global Hyper Meganet wrote: »

Just seems to me that "mental illness" is becoming the go to excuse for any heinous crime.

Seems to me that people are saying this a lot even though it's all in their imagination. Surely it's not that difficult to tell the difference between explaining and excusing?

Are you saying so that if a person who commits a terrible crime against someone is assessed by psychiatrists and diagnosed with a mental illness it should just be ignored?

mfceiling wrote: »

Definitely mentally ill. Could have had the brain power of a 4 year old for all we know.

Not defending her here in the slightest but i find it hard to believe a "normal" sane person could do such a horrific thing.

hmmm....probably depends on what you consider to be 'normal' and 'sane'.

I believe people without any mentall illness can commit atrocious crimes. Whether or not they're sane or normal.....

****edifiknow

Not really all that sure it should matter in many cases.

KKkitty wrote: »

After your 4 year old dying and the first thing that you should do is alert someone as to what's happened but no smoking a joint and having a drink is more important.

All I said was such behavior could be callousness or mental illness.

For me, the fact that she lived with the body for 2 years suggests the latter but who knows as I don't buy the assertion that sane people can't do horrible things.