Homicide
bigglo0099
Week7-Allinthefamily2.pptxChapter 7: All in the Family
Introduction
Violence within the family setting includes physical acts, such as sexual abuse and battery, as well as psychological violence, including emotional abuse, financial abuse, and other actions by one family member against another.
The acts of physical and emotional violence may be predecessors to murder, including intimate partner homicide.
American Homicide. Hough & McCorkle. © SAGE Publications, 2017.
Introduction
The cycle of violence.
The pattern progresses through phases of tension building, acting out, reconciliation, and calm.
The intergenerational transmission of violence concept.
There is no single overarching theory of cause.
Other factors appearing as correlates of violence in the home include poverty and substance abuse.
As always, correlation does not equal causation.
American Homicide. Hough & McCorkle. © SAGE Publications, 2017.
Familicide – Definition and Rates
Rare but shocking.
Approximately 23 times each year in the U.S.
A frequency greater than that of workplace or school mass killings.
In four to five of those annual killings, financial motives were identified.
Economic stress or the perception of extreme loss .
American Homicide. Hough & McCorkle. © SAGE Publications, 2017.
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Family Annihilation
One member kills the entire family
Usually the father
Dominance (total say over his clan, in life and death)
Murder by proxy
Punish the wife (they are her children)
Nehemiah Griego
In 2013, 15 year old killed his entire family
Original story was that the family were accidently killed
Later admitted to feeling homicidal
One of the worst cases in NM History.
15 years old, shot and killed his parents and three siblings at their house in South Valley, New Mexico, near Albuquerque. First he shot his mother around midnight, with a .22 rifle. He said his younger brother Zephaniah woke up, and Griego told him he had shot their mother. He next shot Zephaniah with the same rifle. He went into the bedroom shared by his two younger sisters, who were crying, and fatally shot them each in the head.
Griego went downstairs to wait for his father to return home from his shift at a homeless shelter. When the father returned about 5 a.m., Griego shot him multiple times with an AR-15-type semi-automatic rifle with a scope. The youth drove to church, with two rifles in the van. He told his girlfriend that his family was killed in an accident. A parishioner heard the story and alerted the police, who went to the house and found the bodies
Afterward Griego changed his account and made a statement to police, saying that he had been having suicidal and homicidal thoughts. He said he had obtained the guns from his parents' closet, that his father had bought them and taught both him and his mother to use them. He e-mailed a photo of his dead mother to his girlfriend. His intention had been to drive away, kill more persons, and die in a gun battle with police.
At age 15, Griego was classified as a minor at the time of the crime. Under New Mexico law, minors charged with first-degree murder are to be tried as adults. But persons who are minors at the time a crime is committed cannot be sentenced to death, nor sentenced to life-without-parole
By January 2015, the case was at a standstill due to several complications. Mental health evaluations of Griego were underway.
In October 2015, Griego pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder and three counts of child abuse resulting in death. The Sheriff's office had said that Griego had been planning the killings for days. He had been held at the Sequoyah Adolescent Treatment Center for the previous 18 months before his plea. There would be hearings by the court as to the suitability of Griego to treatment as a juvenile. Extended family members supported the idea of an amenability hearing to determine whether the youth could be treated and did not want to see the case go to trial.
On February 11, 2016, Judge John J. Romero of the New Mexico Children's Court determined that, based on mental health evaluations, Griego is "amenable to treatment". He will sentence him as a juvenile. This would mean that Griego, then 18, would likely be released from a youth detention facility when he turns 21. Bernalillo County District Attorney Kari Brandenburg announced that she would be appealing the ruling.
On August 2019, Judge Alisa Hart filed a 75-page order in 2nd Judicial District Court that reversed the order of the lower court to have Griego be sentenced in juvenile court. She found that, at age 22, he was "not amenable to treatment or rehabilitation in available facilities" and believed that he should not be treated in an unlocked facility. She said he is to be sentenced as an adult. He may face a sentence of up to 120 years in prison because of the multiple victims. His public defender said that it was also possible for him to receive a lesser sentence and continued treatment for his issues. These are confidential because he was a minor when he committed the crimes. Greigo was ultimitely sentenced to three concurrent life sentences plus seven years to run consecutively with the life sentences with credit given for the 2,476 days – six years and 285 days already served and in all must serve 30 years before being eligible for parole.
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Familicide
The case of Chris Watts
Why did he kill?
Financial Issues
Affair
Psychopath/sociopath
Killed his Wife Shannan and unborn son Nico
Daughters
Bella, Age 4
Celeste, Age 3
The murders occurred on the early morning of August 13, 2018. While being interviewed by police, Watts admitted to killing his pregnant wife Shan'ann by strangulation. Their daughters, four-year-old Bella, and three-year-old Celeste, died by asphyxiation due to smothering. Watts then disposed of his daughters' bodies in oil tanks and buried his wife in a shallow grave at his work-site. He pleaded guilty on November 6, 2018, to multiple counts of first-degree murder as part of a plea deal when the death penalty was removed from sentencing. He was sentenced to five life sentences without the possibility of parole, three to be served consecutively and two to be served concurrently.
I strongly encourage you to watch or listen to one of the interviews that is available on YouTube. I have attached one here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbGl8r5MzUI
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Familicide – Theoretical Explanations
Social learning theory.
Routine activities theory.
Psychological and social dimensions.
Again, no single explanation or theory.
American Homicide. Hough & McCorkle. © SAGE Publications, 2017.
Types of Parental Killings
Neonaticide
The killing of a child within 24 hours of delivery
Infanticide
The killing of a child up to one year old
Filicide
The killing of a child from the age of 1 to 18
Early = 1 to 12
Late = 13 and older
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Filicide
2013 statistics
559 kids age 12 and under killed in US (not all of these are killed by parents)
Age 1-4 is the most common (45%)
453 cases where parent did the killing (not all children)
As children get older, more likely killer is the father
The role of psychiatric disorders
The role of drugs and alcohol
Killing due to child’s behavior
Mostly personal weapons, some blunt objects
What we find when we look at studies of filicide is that the killing of older children, especially by their parents, is not nearly as common. A child is at the greatest risk of homicide in their first year of life. But when we look at the numbers, we still see that kids are killed in the 1-12 age range. Again, this is not to say that all of these kids were killed by a parent, but just to give you some perspective on how frequently children this age are killed in this country.
What is interesting to note is that as children get older, they are more likely to die at the hands of their father rather than their mother. They suggest this is more likely due to issues of postpartum psychosis in mothers after delivery and that is why younger children are more likely to be killed by the mother.
When we look at fathers, and mothers, who have killed their older children, there is a very strong prevalence of psychiatric disorders in these offenders. Personality disorder, gross mental pathology, psychotic illness, reactive depression, etc. When they looked at males who had killed their children, they also found that drugs and alcohol played a role in many of the cases. Either the dad was drunk or high, did not want to deal with the child and become extremely irritated with the child’s whining or crying and resort to violence to stop it. Take this case for example: police received an emergency call by a mother who returned home from shopping and found her two year old lying unconscious on the bed. Detectives observed an extensive hematoma in the temporal region of the child’s head and what appeared to be various fractures in the child’s arms. The child was taken to the hospital where she died shortly after arrival. Death due to head trauma. The baby’s father was intoxicated with alcohol and cocaine at the time and had become extremely irritated with the child’s incessant crying. After several attempts to quite her, he grabbed her by her feet and began to whirl her around, hitting her head against the bedroom wall. He stopped only when the child stopped crying. Then he laid the child in her bed and attempting to conceal his actions, told his wife the child had fallen off the bed. He caused her death by whirling her around and hitting her head against the wall repetitively. He was charged with first degree intentional homicide.
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Neonaticide
Practice dates back to primitive cultures; murderous acts of the gods
Kronos, “sacrificial lambs”, Rome, and Greece
Deformed babies killed by midwives
Neonaticide today
Mostly committed by mothers
Young, all ethnicities, unmarried, emotionally immature
Reasons for killing a newborn
Denial, fear, social stigma, mental illness
Methods used
Active: killing using violence
Passive: negligence following the birth
The case of Melissa Drexler aka “Prom Mom”
How do we prevent it?
So how do they do it? There are two types of methods that can be used as described by Resnick.
Active: Rarely is a weapon used to kill a child in this category, and the reason for that is that you don’t need a weapon to kill a newborn. The death usually happens at the actual hands of the offender: drowning, strangulation, head trauma.
Passive: the other type of killing is called passive. This involves negligence following the birth of the child. Not actively killing them, but leaving the child in a place where exposure to the elements will kill the child (in a dumpster, a trash can, a parking lot, etc.) This was a really common method used in the past…let the babies in the gutters, on dung heaps in the city, etc.
The case of Melissa Drexler: Melissa Drexler (born 1978, a.k.a. "The Prom Mom", as labeled by the American media) delivered a baby in a restroom stall at her prom and put the body in the trash before returning to the dance. She pleaded guilty to aggravated manslaughter, and was sentenced to fifteen years of imprisonment. After serving only 37 months, she was released on parole. She kept her pregnancy secret from the baby's father, her parents and classmates. Five foot seven inches tall, and weighing 130 pounds, she apparently showed no signs of her pregnancy. June 6, 1997, Drexler gave birth in a toilet stall at her senior prom. She then retrieved the baby from the toilet bowl, cut the umbilical cord on the bathroom fixtures, wrapped the baby in several garbage sacks, and deposited the bundle in a trash can. She then returned to the dance floor. The baby was discovered by a janitor who responded to reports of blood in the restroom and who became suspicious of the weight of the trash bag. Emergency workers attempted to resuscitate the baby for two hours.
So how do we prevent cases like this from happening?
Education about family planning for young girls
Identification of those at risk by health care professionals
Legislation: safe haven locations, drop off a newborn, no questions asked to ensure the child’s safety. But it depends on the state how old the child can be when dropped off. Less than 72 hours to one year is the current range across states.
Charging, sentencing, incarceration
Specific neonaticide laws in this country…now it is treated like any other homicide. Should it be treated differently?
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Infanticide
Long-standing history of infanticide
Sacrifices, population control, males desired
Most likely the mother
Next most likely killer: male friend/acquaintance
Strangulation, suffocation, beating, shaking
Fit of anger by the adult
Shaken baby syndrome or SIDS? Hard to tell
Unusual methods: China Arnold
Arnold was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole when she was convicted of putting her 28 day old daughter in the microwave for at least 2 minutes. She told her cell mate that the baby fit right in.
When South Korean authorities announced in 2006 that they had found the bodies of two newborns in the home freezer of a French expatriate couple, the first reaction among friends and family was disbelief.
Véronique Courjault, 41, on the surface a devoted mother of two sons, and her husband, Jean-Louis, 42, a shy engineer specializing in diesel motors, at first said they had nothing to do with the macabre discovery. Véronique Courjault, by her own admission, smothered the two babies after giving birth to them secretly in Seoul, the first in 2002 and the second in 2003. She also has acknowledged killing a newborn and burning the body in her garden after a first secret pregnancy in 1999, before the couple left France.
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Local Cases
Born Valentines day, 2002
Las Cruces, NM July 19, 2002
One of the worst cases of child injury the state had ever seen
Killed by her Mother, Father and Uncle
Abused and raped from the day she was born
This case prompted the State to change their laws and create new laws that allowed for severe punishment
Mom, Stephanie Lopez sentenced to 27 years. Served 13 years
Mom released to Plainview Texas in 2016
Dad, Andy Walters sentenced to 57 Years and Uncle, Steven Lopez sentenced to 51 years, still in custody
I use this case in many of the classes that I teach because this case changed my life forever. I was 23 years old, I had decided that Winter to join the Dona Ana County Sheriffs Office because I really thought I wanted to be a law enforcement officer. This case with the many domestic violence cases we responded to that summer made me realize that this was not for me.
I had just gotten home from a graveyard shift and we were all called back in. We were told where to go and wait for instruction upon arrival. When I first arrived at the scene, I was told to assist in securing the scene. Back then, there was not the technology that we have today so I was then told to aide investigators in gridding the crime scene. Essentially this was turning the crime scene into a grid for documentation purposes. The investigators quickly realized that this was going to be tough because there was so much that needed to be documented. There was blood evidence on every wall, almost every inch of the mobile home (well at least it seemed).
If you can imagine, the inside of the house was filthy, it smelled dirty, it is a smell I will never forget.
Baby Brianna was actually alive when she was transported to the local hospital in Las Cruces. She died while being medically attended to.
This poor babygirl suffered a terrible life. She was abused from the day she was born. She was born to a mother who didn’t want her and to a father who also didn’t want her. They treated her like a rag doll. Imagine for a moment that the people who are supposed to protect you are the ones who are hurting you. She was abused, raped, starved-thrown against the wall. Tossed into the air and would hit the ceiling, She was raped vaginally, and anally---she was not even a year old. How is this even possible.
You can find more information about her online. As you can see, this case changed my life. There are things I will never forget. The smell of death is distinct.
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The case of Susan Smith
1994: 23 year old from Union, SC
made a plea to the media to find her
children
Claim: abducted by a black stranger
Reality: rolled her car & kids into a lake
Smith’s background
Witnessed father’s suicide as a child
Molested by stepfather as a child
Attempted suicide
Why did she do it?
Her new boyfriend didn’t want kids
What happened to Smith?
Life in prison, eligible for parole in 2024
23 year old Susan Smith of Union SC went before a national television audience in October 1994 and begged tearfully for the lives and safety of her two sons, 3 year old Michael and 14 month old Alex. According to the distraught mother, a black stranger had jumped into her Mazda Protégé while she was stopped at a traffic light. The carjacker had reportedly ordered her out of the vehicle and then sped off with the two boys still trapped in the backseat. The police were cautiously skeptical, however, because of some discrepancies in her description of the incident. Within days, after failing a polygraph test, Susan Smith confessed that she had rolled the car into a nearby lake with her children strapped helplessly inside. Smith had a very troubled childhood and had experienced with suicide death of her father when she was a child. In addition, she had attempted suicide, and had been molested by a stepfather, a member of the South Carolina Republican executive committee, as a child and continued to have a consensual sexual relationship with him when they were adults. Obviously these factors do not justify her actions, but they do help us to better understand some of the factors that contribute to a mother being capable of the murder of her two children. In the weeks that followed, Smith’s motive for drowning her sons was revealed, and it certainly didn’t paint her in a sympathetic light. Smith was told in a letter from her new boyfriend that he would not stay with her or marry her because she had children. She apparently chose to sacrifice her offspring in the pursuit of romance. What happened to Smith? Life in prison…eligible for parole in 2024 after having served 30 years for her crime.
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The Case of Andrea Yates
2001: drowned 5 kids in the tub
Ages 7, 5, 3, 2, and 6 months
Religious hallucinations
History of nervous breakdowns, suicide attempts, and postpartum psychosis
Urged not to have more children after the 4th
Diaz, Schlosser & Lacey cases
Suffered from post partum depression and eventually post partum psychosis after her 4th child was born. Was under psychiatric treatment and both she and her husband were told that they should not have any more children, due to her mental health concerns. She had thoughts of harming herself and the children at this point. Regardless, she got pregnant with child #5. She again suffered from post partum psychosis and was told that she should not be alone with the children. Her mother in law would come stay with her and the children while her husband Rusty went to work.
On June 20, 2001, after her husband left for work at 9:00 a.m., and before her mother in law arrived, Yates filled the family bathtub and drowned her three youngest sons, Luke, Paul and John. She placed their bodies next to each other on a bed, placing an arm of each boy over another. The infant, Mary, had been in the bathroom in her bassinet, crying. When the oldest child, Noah, entered the room, Mary's body was still in the bathtub; after asking his mother what was wrong with Mary, he attempted to flee. Yates caught him and drowned him next to Mary. Yates took Mary into the other room, laid her next to the first three, and covered all four with a sheet. Yates left Noah in the tub.
Yates called 911 and calmly asked for a police officer to come, asking for an ambulance only after it was suggested by the operator. She then called her husband at work, ordering him to come home. Russell pressed her until she told him she had hurt the children. When Russell rushed home, he found police and medical personnel had already surrounded his house. Russell was kept waiting outside for five hours as the medical examiner processed the children's bodies. Yates received the officers at the door, telling them she had just killed her children. She led them to the master bedroom where they found the four youngest children covered with a sheet, lying face up on the bed, eyes still open. Noah was discovered by another officer face down in the bathtub. Yates calmly explained what she had done, and offered no resistance to the officers as she was led away. All five children were buried on June 28, 2001.
She actually went through two trials for the homicides because of false testimony given in the first by a psychiatrist. She was eventually found not guilty by reason of insanity, but is held in a mental health facility in Kerville, Texas.
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Why do parents kill their children? (2)
Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy
Cause injury, illness, death of child to claim center stage
Gypsy Rose
Post Partum Mental Health
Post partum depression
Post partum psychosis
How do we prevent infanticide?
Munchausen syndrome: adults and children have been known to feign illness or even self-inflict sickness of injury for the sake of attention. For some people who may otherwise feel insecure and unloved, the attention they receive from family, friends, even the medical professionals when they are sick can become psychologically addictive, so much that the sympathy is worth the suffering. In a derivative condition, Munchausen by proxy, parents and other caretakers have been known to cause injury or illness to a child, an elderly parents, or other dependent in order to claim center stage and inject themselves into an exciting or emergency situation. We’ll talk about a case of this in just a minute.
Basically they get sucked in to all the attention they get when their child is sick or injured, so they purposefully do this to get more attention.
Postpartum mental health: because of the extreme emotional changes a woman goes through when she gives birth, especially very rapid changes in hormone levels, some women experience varying degrees of depression and postpartum mental health instability. For many women this just means the baby blues, where you get a little sad, pretty emotional, have a hard time adjusting, but you get over it pretty quickly as your body returns to normal and you adjust to life with an infant. For other women this turns into a more serious case of what is called postpartum depression. Postpartum depression is moderate to severe depression in a woman after she has given birth. It may occur soon after delivery or up to a year later. Most of the time, it occurs within the first 4 weeks after delivery. Actually had to watch a video when I was in the hospital after giving birth about the warning signs and symptoms of postpartum depression and psychosis. Have to sign papers saying that if you feel like harming your child you will come in for mental health treatment, spouse will sign papers saying he will bring you in.
Symptoms
Most of the symptoms are the same as major depression. In addition to depressed mood, one may have the following symptoms nearly every day: agitation and irritability, decreased appetite, difficulty concentrating or thinking, feelings of worthlessness or guilt, feeling withdrawn, socially isolated, or unconnected, lack of pleasure in all or most activities, loss of energy experienced, negative feelings toward the baby, thoughts of death or suicide, trouble sleeping
Postpartum psychosis: Post partum psychosis is the most extreme and most rare form of post partum mental health. Usually described as a period when a woman loses touch with reality, the disorder occurs in women who have recently given birth. It affects between one and two women per 1,000 women who have given birth.
Unfortunately, though many women with the disorder realize something is wrong with them, fewer than 20% actually speak to their healthcare provider. Sadder still is the fact that often postpartum psychosis is misdiagnosed or thought to be postpartum depression, thereby preventing a woman from receiving the appropriate medical attention that she needs. Women who do receive proper treatment often respond well but usually experience postpartum depression before completely recovering. However, without treatment, the psychosis can lead to tragic consequences. Postpartum psychosis has a 5% suicide rate and a 4% infanticide rate.
So how do we prevent infanticide?
Identify those at risk for developing postpartum depression and psychosis. Making sure women receive the treatment they need and are properly screened during the postpartum period to make sure they are treated if they are experiencing these issues. Should we punish these people, or should we just treat them? In other countries there are specific infanticide laws and they give probation and treatment as a punishment for a woman who commits infanticide. What do you think? Do you think this is an appropriate sentence for someone who has committed this crime? Educate women while they are in the hospital after giving birth so they know this is normal and they can receive treatment. Reluctance to admit?
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The Case of the Menendez Brothers
August 20, 1989 at the Menendez home
Jose and Kitty killed with 12 gauge shotgun execution style, shot in kneecaps (to make look mob-related)
Brothers at the movie, came home called cops
Erik (19) and Lyle (22) started to spend their inheritance
Mob story fell apart, Erik confessed to shrink
2 trials to convict
Claimed abuse, jury didn’t buy it
Both sentenced to life in prison
Brothers don’t speak to each other
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