murder – YA Chit Chat

I saw on the local news this morning that a 34-year old mom killed her two kids, ages 5 and 9, then hung herself from a fan in a bedroom with an electrical chord.

What possesses a parent to kill their children? In this case, it’s not postpartum depression The kids are too old. Obviously the mom wasn’t ‘well’, but how can a parent, especially a mom, look at her kids and kill them? There is no way I could harm my kids, much less kill them. Sure, maybe there were times I yelled at them when I shouldn’t have. I know I wasn’t the best mom in the world all the time and some psychologist somewhere will probably say I damaged my kids in some way, shape or form, but I love my kids. I would die to protect my kids.

What are your thoughts? What is with the latest trend of moms killing their kids? Sorry for the morbid thought but I actually started a fantasy novel a while back with this as a plot line, but couldn’t finish it because I couldn’t wrap my head around the mom actually killing her kid. What would possess a parent to do something so horrific?

I would love you hear your comments.

Parents killing their children is a relatively common crime (sacbee.com)
Why Moms Kill Their Own Children (fox2now.com)
Ill women think they are saving kids, experts say (stltoday.com)
Postpartum Syndrome Blamed in Infant’s Killing (blogs.lawyers.com)
Police: Jefferson County mom sent ‘goodbye’ email before killing 3 daughters, herself (stltoday.com)

I keep forgetting to officially sign up for this every week, but I like to participate anyway. Here are six sentences from a psychological thriller I started writing years ago and may finish some day. The title of the novel is FLOWERS FROM THE FIELD.

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Ben checked his son was asleep, then stumbled outside, beer sloshing from the bottle in his hand. He scooped up the dead dog in his arms, stumbled over the other dog’s body, and carried it inside. Upstairs, he laid the lifeless form across the foot of Mitch’s bed. You wanted your damn dog. You got your damn dog. He swigged back the alcohol and smiled.

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