Susan Smith-The women who killed her 2 kids
In 1994, Susan Smith a South Carolina mother of 2 claimed that she had been carjacked by an African American male. Her two boys one 3-year-old and a 14-month-old were in the car. Then nine days later she confessed that she had launched down her car into a lake with her kids in the car, drowning both boys who were strapped into her car seats at the time. She claims she did it because she was having an affair with a man who didn't want children. She was later convicted in July 1995 on two counts of murder and is now serving out her life sentence in Greenwood, S.C, facility. Sadly there have been many other cases where mothers have murdered her children like for example Andrea Yates who drowned all her 5 children in the bathtub and admitted it on the spot with almost having no feelings towards what she did. Another big and controversial case that there was the case of Darlie Routier in 1996 which was a year later after Susan Smith. Darlie was accused of stabbing her 5 year old son. They later convicted and sentenced her to die for fatally stabbing her son. This was very controversial because all the evidence links up to her murdering her son but she repeatedly keeps saying she didn't kill her son and she never had any mental issues in the past or anything like that like Andrea Yates did. I think this was very controversial because a year before Susan Smith has admitted that she killed her 2 kids and drowned them so after hearing a year later that a similar case happened with Darlie Routier I think it was really hard to believe her among other things they found. When I first heard about these cases it was hard to believe or ever think that a mother can do that to her own children.
I think that stories like these show the desperate need for help for people with mental health issues, especially mothers. If Susan's story is true in that she murdered her own children because of the opinions of the man she was with, then this is clearly the actions of someone who is not of sane mind. It is so heartbreaking to hear stories like this, especially of Andrea Yates and Darlie Routier as unfortunately the children's helplessness was taken advantage of. I believe that for the safety of not only children, but for people in general, that mentally ill people should get the help that they need, for the amount of time that they need. Andrea Yates did get help, but for some reason she was constantly allowed to go back home when she was still mentally ill. Adults that are not of sane mind should not have the power to decide whether or not they need to stay in a hospital, there should be a third party accurately examining them and deciding the length of time that they need to stay in hospital.
ReplyDeleteI agree- I feel that these examples illustrate the need for better resources and more research regarding mental health. Mental illness can manifest itself in a wide variety of ways. It may be difficult to detect and can cause people to feel isolated, even leading some people to take drastic measures like we have seen in cases such as that of Andrea Yates. Before killing her children, Susan Smith had also suffered from depression and suicidal thoughts, and this fact was brought to attention after she confessed. According to Mental Health America (Source 1), over 16 million adults in the United States are affected by major depression annually, showing how significant of an issue it is. Yet, this statistic also displays how it is difficult to shift the blame for such a horrifying act onto one's mental illness, as there are so many more people who suffer from mental illness who do not murder their children than people whose mental illness actually drives them to such an extreme. Bill Hendrick explains this reality clearly in the Chicago Tribune: "Mental illness and insanity are not synonymous. Millions of people suffer mental illnesses, such as depression, anxiety and phobias, but aren't insane" (Source 3). Mental illness, and its many diverse effects on different people in many situations, including mothers like Yates and Smith, needs to be prioritized as a major issue in order to really get to the root of these tragedies that continue to take place and work on finding solutions to prevent them in the future.
Delete1. http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/conditions/depression
2. https://www.nytimes.com/1995/07/22/us/psychiatrist-for-susan-smith-s-defense-tells-of-a-woman-desperate-to-be-liked.html
3. https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1995-07-16-9507160145-story.html
Among all the cases we have studied I find the different motives these mothers have very interesting to do such a thing. Many of the motives are depended on the morals that they have as a person, and when it comes to a mother killing her children to please a mans needs is very selfish. Often times motives root from postpartum depression, and when this is the situation, the prosecution process is much more complicated.
ReplyDeleteI think this was a really good choice for a topic to write about, as we had learned about Darlie Routier in class and how the jury might have been biased against her, due to this case. I think one reason this case was on peoples minds and affected their view of Darlie during her trial was due to how disturbing a case of a mother killing her children really is. We think of a mother as someone who loves her children unconditionally, so to see so many cases of mothers killing their children goes against that belief.
ReplyDeleteWell, parents don't have a place to dump off their kids anymore if they don't want them. No, they have to stick with their kids until they turn 18. There is no way to get rid of them. Aside from murder. Yes, it's drastic and yes, it's rare, but not wanting children anymore is a motive, however horrible it is, to murder them. I don't know what can be done about it, but for parents murdering their children is probably the easiest crime to commit out there. Getting away with it is a lot harder, but that's not important. Because if the children are already dead, punishing the person responsible will not bring them back. It would be a thousand times better if the children had been kept alive. Yet it's still very possible and easy for their parents to murder children- especially if those children are young- and something has to be done about that.
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