DALLAS – A suburban Dallas woman accused of killing her two young children told a 911 operator that she first tried to poison them because they were autistic and she wanted "normal kids," then choked them with a wire until they stopped moving, according to the recorded call. ...When the operator asked the woman why she attacked her children, she said, "They're both not normal, not normal. They're autistic. Both are autistic." Pressed further, she said, "I don't want my children to be like that. ... I want normal kids."Later, the dispatcher asked the woman what she was feeling. "Nothing," she responded.Let me first get the obvious disclaimer out of the way:
it is never ok to kill your children. I can think of few instances in which it is acceptable to kill another person, family or otherwise. Such behavior should be condemned and punished.
But.
Reading this horrific story, my heart broke for the murderer.
I can totally imagine the thought process that led this woman to strangle her own babies. I picture her slogging through years of evaluations, treatments, meltdowns, quack cures. I see her handling daily life with a child with autism as best she could, managing her son's needs by day and crying from the stress every night, praying for a "normal" one, then enduring the heartbreak of realizing her second child was also atypical. She fears for her children's uncertain future. She struggles with her children's competing needs. Her marriage feels the strain. She feels overwhelmed. She feels alone. She feels responsible. She mourns the life she thinks she should have had - the typical life with typical kids and typical expectations.
Some behavior or meltdown or quirk sets her off.
She snaps.
The future is unfathomable. She considers suicide, but knows there would be no one left to care for her babies.
So she kills the kids.
The difference between mental illness and mental health is not the presence or absence of dangerous urges: it's what you
do with those destructive impulses. No sane person would murder her children, but I think it would be insane not to
feel impulses like that sometimes.
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Comments (36)
Thank God for birth control...
I kinda understand but... heard of adoption?
What happened to the good ole days when people used to just off themselves and left everyone else alone. And do you ever notice that those who also "intended" to kill themselves after their horrific crimes never quite succeed in that endeavor.
Lets just call it what it is here, EVIL
It sucks that any person would be allowed to be pushed to that point. This is why friends, community, family, and all of that is SOOOO important. Yeah, it is evil. It is wrong that someone would feel that hopeless and desparate to resort to murder. Just as bad to feel that hopeless and desparate to resort to suicide. Perhaps it was selfishness to the utmost degree, perhaps it was a moment of insanity... or perhaps a lifetime of it. You can never know what is going on inside another person, not really.
I think some people are just better suited to being mothers than others. I know it's tough for my mom to take care of my autistic brother. She gets angry, frustrated, but she only wants what is best for him.
I know another mother who has 3 children, two autistic boys and one normal girl. She handles everything just fine and in stride. She says raising any child is tough, and her boys are just different challenges.
It would appear that this woman was a bit unstable to begin with to feel nothing about the death of her two children.
You say it well
@keystspf@xanga - and so do you.
It's proper for justice to take its inexorable course. But those know the score--like the author of the post--are qualified to speak on the additional aspect of an attitode of empathy and mercy.
C.S. Lewis says about loving one's enemy and forgiving doesn't mean to reduce one iota the revulsion we feel for evil and crime. Or to make the penalty any less severe. It does mean to wish the offender the very best under the circumstances, and hope for their cure--in this world, or perhaps the next.
I don't think I can fully understand. I can certainly empathize with her, but I do not understand how anyone could kill their own children. I understand being frustrated,wanting your life to be different, but murdering your children because they are not normal is not the solution.
She LIED about her second child having autism too: http://cbs11tv.com/local/rashid.akhter.saiqa.2.1822437.html
Sorry but I feel absolutely no empathy or sympathy for the mother. She should be shot really for killing her own children. Who cares if they're not normal, they are still her children and she has no right taking them out of this world. They have a right to life.
@MasqueradeOfDreams@xanga - Agreed. There are always options.
Supposedly, an uncle said there was nothing wrong with the kids at all. They were just regular kids, probably hyper happy little things. a 2 year old and a 5 year old. Of course they're rambunctious.
This woman should be shot.
I really can't believe you feel bad for her.
I would feel bad for her for the frustration of not knowing how to deal with children who have autism. But I have no sympathy whatsoever for her due to the fact that she thought her own feelings were reason enough to murder two innocent children.
She was stressed, so she thought someone else had to die. Two someone elses, in fact. That is just about the most selfish, horrific thing I've ever heard.
That woman deserves no sympathy. She deserves a firing squad.
I would never feel bad for somebody who did that. Everybody has their struggles and problems but no problems will EVER make it okay to murder, let alone have somebody feel bad for them. She was perfectly well aware of what she was doing.
@Laura - It seems that she suspected the younger child was autistic b/c he wasn't speaking yet. I also think she might be schizophrenic. It doesn't make the murder okay, but it does make me sympathize with the murderer.
Wow, all I can say is, wow.
Are there places you can send Autistic children instead of kill them? Did she think they would be better off dead than to live in this world? I was thinking she might feel shame if she gave them up, but then I thought about it and she would have more shame for being found as the killer. I wonder if she was emotionally stable before hand. If so, I guess this means any normal human could snap one day and do this. That's terrifying. I'm so scared of that idea, our own parents killing us. Yikes.
Some people just shouldn't have children.
your heart is breaking? mine is not.
I can certainly understand the thoughts that might come before such an act, but to actually murder your children is reprehensible. For sure there are some killers who I have sympathy for; this is not one of them.
You're obviously just as fucking insane at that damn murderer.
@P1AutismMom - "What happened to the good ole days when people used to just off themselves and left everyone else alone." Uh, there were never days like that. People don't want to die alone. Mass suicides have been written throughout history. Murder-suicides even more so.
My heart doesn't break either. I'm actually more sympathetic towards the man with Autism who killed one of his classmates, because of being teased. To drown them because they have autism is just evidence of having some screws loose, really. But the nagain, when it comes to the idea of both normalcy and forgiveness, I tend to think different ly than the average Joe and Jane.
Beautiful post. I'm sure you probably got most of her emotions, and the emotions of a typical woman with such fate..
I feel really really bad for her, and even worst for her kids. Autism isnt the end of the world, her kids still had a future...
@ScarletMoth@xanga - I second this.
my heart breaks for the two children that were murdered. what the mother did was unfathomable. so she wanted normal kids, who wouldn't. but she couldn't love the ones she already had? that's the most selfish thing in the world. those poor children.
Uh..lets review:
"I don't want my children to be like that. ... I want normal kids."Later, the dispatcher asked the woman what she was feeling. "Nothing," she responded.
And your heart BREAKS for her? She is a cold blooded killer. She didnt kill because she was frustrated with the stresses that come with raising a child with a disability. She killed them because she wanted "normal" kids. Don't believe me (even though she sid it herself)? Then why did she feel NOTHING afterwards. Not guilt, not regret, not sorrow. NOTHING. Sounds like a sociopath to me.
Further..she CHOKED them with a wire. Thats not a fast process. If you are stressed with your child and (God forbid) begin to hurt them...you have plenty of time to stop before they die if you are choking them.
This woman deserves NO sympathy.
@Nawnaa@xanga - Lmao.
Seriously though. Hearing about her predicament pre-murder could possibly warrant an "aw + sympathy" response but post-murder it turns more into a "wtf psycho" response.
I mean techinally anyone can add a sob story to explain the "why" portion of a crime.