http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010620/ts/children_slain.html

I know this belongs somewhere else.

She picked the wrong state to live in for this. temp insanity?. guilty?, excusable?, manslaughter?

-- Anonymous, June 20, 2001

Answers

I think she's obviously crazy - people in these cases nearly always are.

I don't have an opinion about what her punishment should be.

-- Anonymous, June 22, 2001

When she comes out of the fog and realizes what she's done, my guess is she'll beg for the death penalty. Ugh.

And hey, she's in the right state to have that wish granted. Ugh again.

-- Anonymous, June 22, 2001

I think it's very interesting that this woman is being portrayed so sympathetically by the media compared to someone like Susan Smith, whose case seems to me to be nearly identical, but who was absolutely villified in the press. Both were stressed-out moms who drowned their kids, but Andrea Yates had been officially diagnosed with "post-partum depression," whereas Smith had not. Actually, Yates's crime seems worse to me: she actually drowned her kids with her own hands.

-- Anonymous, June 22, 2001

I agree with Jen that Yates' crime is more horrifying than Susan Smith's. The image of her dragging her seven year old to the tub where his baby sister's body already lay submerged will stay with me a long time. It's hard to believe that she won't be found insane, though. I bet Susan Smith would have gotten off if she had run straight to the police instead of concealing her crime. We have a strong bias to believe that a sane mother could not possibly kill her child.

-- Anonymous, June 22, 2001

Actually, if you remember, Susan Smith accused a mystery black man of kidnapping. (I think that's right)

The racial overtones AND the cover-up did her in.

I seem to also remember it came out later, her new boyfriend didn't want children which was looked at as a motive. (not sure about that last part either)

-- Anonymous, June 22, 2001

I think that's what did Susan Smith in, too. She did it and initially held the entire country in the lurch. Everyone was on the look out and worried about those kids. The entire time, she's crying her eyes out on TV, begging and pleading for her kids to come home. That's just sick. She also chose to blame it on an African-American and play the race card. That's why she was villified.

It's a terrible crime but at least this lady didn't try to pin it on anyone else, she called the police and her husband right after it happened and owned up to it. It's horrible she couldn't have called the police before and said, "I'm ABOUT to kill my kids". That would have been a lot better.

-- Anonymous, June 22, 2001

Yeah, my understanding of the Susan Smith case was that her new boyfriend didn't want to marry her because of the kids. Her crime didn't seem to be motivated by insanity.

There was a good article in Salon about this, about post partum depression. It was also interesting to read the responses to it.

-- Anonymous, June 22, 2001