From the author of Children Who Kill and Women Who Kill, an exploration of why parents do the unthinkable Maria Colwell, Jasmine Beckford, "Baby P"—every time a child dies violently, the public reels at the suggestion that a parent may have been involved. Carol Anne Davis seeks to answer the question of how the protective instinct sometimes fails and why some parents fatally harm their own children. Examining the tragic phenomena of infanticide and child murder, she explores cases of neglected or abused children who grow up to batter their own babies, religious and sexual taboos which lead to so called "honor killings," as well as the processes of score-settling in relationships, postnatal depression, psychosis, and many other murder triggers. The cases include the most recent and harrowing case of Mick and Mairead Philpott who killed six of their children in an arson attack on their own house.
This is a shattering book. Leaving aside the people, usually mothers, with extreme mental health conditions such as post-partum depression, almost all the others seem to be narcissistic sociopaths. I have read in The Psychopath Whisperer (( think) that there are more women incorrectly diagnosed as narcissistic who are really psychopaths or sociopaths.
There is a difference between psychopaths and sociopaths, they aren't the same thing at all. A psychopath has no empathy and no conscience although both can be feigned by imitation when necessary. Psychopaths are born that way. Sociopaths may or may not be born that way. But some of the main differences are that sociopaths are able to form emotional bonds to a limited extent, usually limit by the number of people, not the depth of emotion. Therefore a woman may love her boyfriend deeply to the exclusion of her children, so if he beats them repeatedly she will not do anything that will endanger her relationship with him.
Sociopaths also have very weak consciences, psychopaths have none, are often disorganised and have bad tempers. Psychopaths are masters of calm planning. Both are narcissitic in that they are unable to put anyone else before themselves which is about the opposite of all normal parents (except those from cultures which routinely commit dis-"honor"able killings on their female family members, those people are 'normal' according to their culture). Normal parents would all die to save their children's lives.
This explains a great deal of the murders of children by parents. The angry father whose wife has left him so he kills the children (and often himself). The woman who won't stop her boyfriend from assaulting her little ones and covers up for him to doctors and the police. The woman who drowned her children and pretended it was something to do with her religion but it was really to keep her boyfriend. And the women, like Casey Anthony, who just kill their children because they've had enough of them and want a different life. (There are a lot of those men and women in the world who just up sticks and leave their families to start a new life, I believe they are all socio or psychopathic, but they aren't murderers).
The mentally ill, the psychotics, paranoid schizophrenics. What can you do? They don't live in our world (see Operators and Things: The Inner Life of a Schizophrenic and if they aren't helped by drugs probably do not have their children, if they have any, with them. But once in a while... Those with post-partum depression need to have immediate and major action from their health providers and not some weak sort of chat and anti-depressants.
There is another category and I used to believe they were evil, but I don't now. The women, usually young girls who had covered up their pregnancies, who give birth and immediately kill the baby and often dump it in the garbage. They lie and say it was still born, but they knew what they were doing and saw it as the only way out of an impossible situation. They just couldn't tell the world they had a child. I think they become more and more psychotic as the time for birth draws close. They lose touch with the world, they think they will get away with it, but of course they don't.
There is a solution to these girls who murder implemented by many cities in many countries, but it should be mandatory in every place in the world that has a hospital, fire or police station. That is an anonymous 'drawer' that opens from the outside that the baby can be placed in, and then retrieved from inside. And no cameras. It used to be babies were left on the steps of a hospital or church but that might harm the baby, this way is safer. And for the baby it is no worse than adoption, but for the mother it is a problem solved without a crime and doing the best they can at that moment their child.
When I was a young girl I had a classmate that always smelled,hair was messy and oily,clothes dirty and she never failed to bring this suitcase filled with toys and things from her home with her to school. At the time, being so young, I didn't understand. One day I asked her why do you bring a suitcase to school? I will never forget her answer she told me in case someone wanted to take her home and love her she would have all her things ready and could go with them right away.(can you say WOW!!!! ) I went home and asked my mom what she meant and she told me not all children had good loving homes where they were safe and wanted. As I aged I never forgot her and eventually social work is what I became interested in. I think a part of me always wanted to find that little girl a loving home.
This book brought tears to my eyes just as the "suitcase girl" does every time I think back to her.
I'm a fan of crime series. I'm a sucker for shows such as Criminal Minds, CSI: Vegas/NY, Dexter, and any crime series. And I always liked reading true crime stories. Weird, I know. Actually, some of my friends always teased me, calling me weird because I was fascinated with them. I remembered this site Crime Library where you can find hundreds of true stories about notorious crimes of all times and reports about criminal minds, criminal profiling, and forensics. I used to spend time browsing that site and reading all those crimes. Unfortunately, it's no longer accessible. Going back, I came across this book, and the first thing that came into my mind was "How can any parent/parents kill their own child/children?"
So I decided to read it and find some answers. The author gave the readers detailed short stories about why some parents killed their children mercilessly and without remorse. And how the justice system sometimes lets down those kids. In this book, she also put many works into grouping and categorizing them based on their motives/reasons. Yes. Parents kill for a wide variety of reasons - you'll find women who murdered their offspring for the insurance money, to garner attention, sometimes due to mental illness/insanity, or to enjoy new romance like Susan Smith and Diane Down. They killed their children and even pretended that a stranger did it. So they can have an opportunity to reinvent themselves as free and single, thinking that their ex-lovers who didn't want children will take them back. Some of the fathers who killed were due to religious beliefs - that they were sending their children to a better place, in other cases, the motive was also financial gain - they'll collect the insurance money. Still, the most common reason was revenge on the children's mother because she had left him or was planning to leave.
But for whatever reasons they did that, I will never understand why parents, step-parents, grandparents, or anyone for that matter can take a child's life and be okay with it.
I'm 48% done with Parents Who Kill: A lot of cases and very interesting ones which I try to look up but also very hard to read about daddy wanting revenge on his ex and killing their kids, or mummy wanting to keep scummy boyfriend so allows him to abuse her kids. Have to take breaks reading this one. — Feb 16, 2015 04:10AM
Removing this from my currently reading books because I am not currently reading. Will get back to it.
Update: Back to reading it. August 11 2015.
Finished one or 2 days later and what a read.
The book is divided in chapters like for instance: Men who kill their Pregnant Wives
Or In the Name of Honour ( also had to do with religion) Then you have parents (dads mostly) that kill for money Money for Nothing
You will also find famous cases in this book like the one of Andre Yates who murdered her 5!!! babies but was found to be suffering from postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis, and was in the end found not to be guilty by reason of insanity.
So many interesting stories.
In the end there was one chapter I could not read.Heaven can't wait about idiotic religious zealots who let their kids die because their religion says no interference. Why it angered me was because nearly all parents in that chapter were allowed to do this without being punished and their kids suffered. (This is why I have come to see religion as a thing used by mostly men to control stupid women) 4.5 stars.
A disturbing read about some sick individuals who murder their offspring, and some desperate people driven heyond what they can cope with. I disagreed that people who euthanase a very disabled child should be in the same volume as those sick fuckers that starved and beat their kids or let some other sick fucker attack and brutalise their baby, but I guess the result is the same... a child has died at the hands of their parent. Very interesting read, sickened me in parts, and being a social worker I felt horrified at how many of the kids in the pages of the book have been let down by social and health services. very sad.
The three stars are for the book itself, it was very well written and a great many cases for anyone who likes to read about true-crime etc
on another token I'd like to give -10 stars to all the bastards in the book or even the fact that there is so many of them tells horrifically of the kind of world we live in.
Babies are cherished gifts to most however, some parents commit the most unthinkable of crimes; they take the lives of their own children. Many are clear intentional acts to end the life of their child. In some cases, it is not just one child but all the children in the household whose lives are taken.
The reasons behind such cruelty can vary widely and responsibility extends beyond fathers seeking revenge on mothers by harming the children, but to single mothers, young mothers, and to couples acting together. In Parents Who Kill by Carol Anne Davis we are taken on a devastating journey through such cases, examining every possible reason that a parent or parents would kill their own children.
Carol Anne Davis delves deep into such cases, exploring the motivations and psychology behind these acts. From young mothers in denial and mothers with mental health problems to fathers taking revenge, a range of tragic cases where children have lost their lives at the hands of their own parents are reviewed. A book which manages to balance case studies with background information on the psychology of these acts, giving us as readers more insight into how anybody could carry out such a horrific act. In each case the details are not dwelled on and drawn out. In fact many are quite short, focusing on the key details of the crime. Cases are not poured over with emphasis on the grisly details, they are set in a little background and family history, leading to the murder and then through to the criminal outcome of the case.
With a fluid writing style and an analysis which does not dwell on grisly details, this is a book that is devastating to read but at the same time, is a book that is impossible to put down.
Mixed feelings about this one - though Carol Anne Davis clearly has done a lot of research and though she writes with plenty of professional authority (the final chapter discussing how to prevent the high level of infanticide in the UK made for very sensible reading), I think the main problem I had with this book was the weight of tragedy contained.
Yes, I find true crime interesting, and yes I *chose* to read this - but the choice of the author to include quite so many examples of parents killing their children, explored at times in very little depth, left me feeling pretty upset and slightly disappointed. The nature of the beast, and I can understand the merit of including so many case studies, but it felt like skimming the surface of a huge issue and not getting very deep. Compared to collections of case studies about other types of crime where each example is explored at greater length and to a more satisfying degree.
This book provides good evidence for those who support social services being better resourced and having more power, and also left me thinking compulsory sterilisation should be an option for some people.
"The bond between parent and child is the strongest natural connection imaginable. But in rare and shocking cases, that bond can be brutally broken."
I didn't have many thoughts on this book before I read it, but anything I could have possibly thought was blown out of my mind. The author has made such an interesting book on such a sad topic. She was able to hook me in and often made it hard for me to put the book down. It was so factual and made me want to read more of her books. It was far better than I was expecting.
This book does go into detail about the cases, which are neatly separated into different topics, and I wouldn't recommend it for the faint of heart. I found myself getting upset and feeling sick whilst reading about the child abuse cases, so if you can't stomach details, skip this book.
𝐅𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐝𝐞- When a parent(s) murder their child or all their children for various reasons. Sometimes their motive is unknown which is very disturbing & creepy. 𝐍𝐞𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐝𝐞- The murder of a baby after being born, within the first 24 hours that the baby was alive. A lot of the crimes/murders of babies or young children in this book will be either Filicide or Neonaticide hence why I included the definition of both in my review of this book. It's not a pleasant subject matter to read about, but I do like reading true crime books. If your from England or British then it's likely that you will know who this despicable, disgusting couple is that is on the cover of this book. Mick PhilPott is a predatory, peadophile, he had two separate wives that he had children with but the first woman he had a relationship with was underage. The second woman he chose to get married to & have children with could have prevented the deaths of some of their children, but she didn't so she is guilty by association. It was Mick's idea to combine his families/children together in a attempt to gain more money from the government in the form of a benefit (money from the government which is specifically for people that are poor, unemployed & struggling financially) It was his idea to set the house on fire, and to make it seem like 6 of his children died accidently even though it was arson & murder, his wife did nothing to prevent it from happening. Some people choose to abuse the system implemented to help people unfortunately so it makes the people that are genuinely, poor, unemployed and struggling financially look bad, but not everyone is the same. I've never agreed with the offensive, disrespectful attitude, opinion, mentality or perception some people have of anyone that is impoverished, struggling financially that they are automatically uneducated, or not intelligent. Just because someone is poor, it doesn't automatically mean that they are uneducated, or not intelligent, they don't have the same opportunities as someone that has more money. Biology is taught in schools, so I don't understand why the author seems to think that women don't understand how their body functions or if a teenager or adult woman would know if they are pregnant or not. There have been cases of women that didn't know they were pregnant, they unexpectedly gave birth to their baby, but then either accidentally or purposefully murdered their baby. Caroline Ann Beale-This is one of the most heinous, disturbing & disgusting murders i've ever read about involving a baby. She could have just aborted the baby if she didn't want to have the baby, instead of hiding the fact that she was pregnant, going through all the pain, suffering, discomfort or pregnancy for 9 months & to murder the baby after giving birth to the baby was absolutely pointless, it could have been avoided, prevented. I can't believe that she carried around with her the corpse of her dead baby and attempted to go through the American airport, to transport the corpse of her dead baby back to England, it's very disturbing. Why are people allowed to go to a European countries to hunt a wild animal and transport the corpse of the dead animal back to England? Why is that okay in comparison to a woman attempting to transport the corpse of her dead baby on a aeroplane back to England? Both scenarios absolutely disgust/disturb me. I'm not particularly interested in people that murder their baby, a child/their own children/step-children, it disgusts me immensely, it's unforgivable, it makes me feel physically sick. It's suspicious to me that the potential father of the baby didn't give a blood sample so they couldn't determine who the father of the baby was. Why wouldn't he want to know if he was the biological father of the poor unwanted baby that was murdered after being born? I didn't finished reading this book, because it is too gruesome, gut-wrenching & depressing to read so maybe other people will feel the same way about the subject matter of this book as I did.
This book was very well researched and detailed. It had baby p story in which I saw on the news, the wrestler Chris Benoit in it and many other I had heard of but didn't know the details till now. It still shocks me that social services and medical personnel are not noticing abuse failing to spot it, knowing it's there but doing nothing about it.
The last 3 chapters were about neglect and abuse, couples who kill their kids together and religion! They were hard to read I found myself getting very angry!
Although this book is very sad and disgusting on so many levels, I have given this book the highest possible rating because it outlines the poor justice system we have. Not just in Britain and America but all over the world. Many of the children's deaths in this book could have been prevented if it wasn't for the poor care from social services and other associations. This book made me feel very strongly disgusted at the world. Bravo for the well written piece of work!
Author suggests no children for UK parents yet they import millions
The stories were interesting but the author has nothing of value regarding child care. UK women should limit or not have kids but the UK imports millions from child abusing cultures. No. Just no.
I mean it’s just as salacious as you’d think - imagine a channel 5 or cheesy American true crime documentary but the author is so judgemental and really plays into cultural stereotypes and has a clear and aggressive agenda at the end of the book which didn’t seem helpful to me.
Atrocious fact checking at times. Some of these cases I googled after.. Others I had heard of before.. And while many of the facts of the crimes were correct.. My does she love to embellish the background... Not a thought for the families behind this in some stories!
While there are a large number of cases of infanticide presented in this book there is no evidence of any authoritative research, particularly in the more recent cases, other than what is already in the public arena. I found the author's negative comments toward the perpetrators to be judgemental and unprofessional, which over time became extremely irritating. It would be much more effective to allow readers to come to conclusions themselves. On the whole, this was a very disappointing read.
Although interesting, there was an evident lack of research in many stories. The stories seemed somewhat superficial and the book read like an attempt to cram in as much of stories as possible, whereas fewer well-researched stories would have intrigued and engaged the readers better.