Parents Who Kill--Shocking True Stories of the World's Most Evil Parents Read Online Free
Author: Carol Anne Davis
a newspaper from 1956.
Police said that they’d have to do DNA tests on the remains to establish that they were indeed the woman’s children, adding that the dead woman’s family were deeply shocked as they were aware that the infants were probably their siblings. They would never know why she had killed two of her infants yet let others live.
An 18-year-old boy had a similarly gruesome experience in Wenden near Frankfurt in May 2007 when his 44-year-old mother was away from home and he went rooting deep inside the family freezer in search of a pizza. Instead, he unearthed three tiny corpses wrapped in plastic bags.
His alcoholic mother, Monika Halbe, admitted secretly giving birth to a baby in 1986 and to two more between 2003 and 2007. She said that she had hidden the babies but that she hadn’t murdered them. However, the prosecution countered that the first had died of suffocation or neglect and that one of the others had been drowned.
She was jailed for four years and three months for the mostrecent deaths, but wasn’t tried for the baby born in 1986 because of the statute of limitations, more than 20 years having elapsed.
There have been similar cases elsewhere in Europe, with families belatedly realising that their mothers were effectively serial killers.
CHAPTER TWO
HORMONAL HELL
G iving birth can be a challenging experience which leaves the new mother physically and emotionally exhausted. This low state is compounded five days later when oestrogen and progesterone, which have been up to a thousand times their normal level, drop back to their pre-pregnancy state. Such huge changes in the endocrinal system cause spontaneous bouts of weeping in three-quarters of women, a condition colloquially known as the baby blues.
The majority of mothers recover within a couple of days, but up to 10 per cent go on to suffer post-natal depression with symptoms which include fatigue, insomnia, anxiety and loss of appetite. Thyroid problems brought on by the pregnancy can also cause low mood and lethargy. Half of this depressed 10 per cent will require psychiatric care, either in hospital or on an outpatient basis.
Fortunately, only two mothers in a thousand actually suffer a psychotic episode, in which they lose touch with reality, as a result of post-natal (also known as post-partum) depression.
Women who come from families with a history of psychiatric illness are up to 80 per cent more likely to suffer an episode of severe post-natal psychoses than women without such histories. Unfortunately, a new mother who suffers such a depressive episode is 50 per cent more likely to suffer a recurrence in subsequent pregnancies.
Though they have originally looked forward to motherhood , a small number of these temporarily-psychotic mothers kill their babies and, sometimes, themselves.
In other instances, clinical levels of depression aren’t necessarily hormonal, instead being caused by the woman’s situation: a poor marriage or relationship, bad housing, poverty and the lack of a supportive mother figure can all contribute to feelings of anger and hopelessness.
DANIELLE WAILS
A Newcastle barmaid, Danielle had a history of failed relationships which had included violence. She was known to social services and to mental health charities.
When she was 20, she found out that she was expecting her first child – her sister-in-law would later say that she’d deliberately become pregnant in order to hold on to her new boyfriend, 22-year-old Robert Gallon. But, a few weeks later she said that she wanted a termination; that she couldn’t cope with a child. Her boyfriend looked shocked and talked her out of it, promising that they would be a family. He had already fathered a son, now two, that he didn’t see because the mother had moved away, but he liked the idea of fatherhood.
The couple moved in together and Danielle gave up work but she called Robert so often at the building site where he worked that his boss became
Police said that they’d have to do DNA tests on the remains to establish that they were indeed the woman’s children, adding that the dead woman’s family were deeply shocked as they were aware that the infants were probably their siblings. They would never know why she had killed two of her infants yet let others live.
An 18-year-old boy had a similarly gruesome experience in Wenden near Frankfurt in May 2007 when his 44-year-old mother was away from home and he went rooting deep inside the family freezer in search of a pizza. Instead, he unearthed three tiny corpses wrapped in plastic bags.
His alcoholic mother, Monika Halbe, admitted secretly giving birth to a baby in 1986 and to two more between 2003 and 2007. She said that she had hidden the babies but that she hadn’t murdered them. However, the prosecution countered that the first had died of suffocation or neglect and that one of the others had been drowned.
She was jailed for four years and three months for the mostrecent deaths, but wasn’t tried for the baby born in 1986 because of the statute of limitations, more than 20 years having elapsed.
There have been similar cases elsewhere in Europe, with families belatedly realising that their mothers were effectively serial killers.
CHAPTER TWO
HORMONAL HELL
G iving birth can be a challenging experience which leaves the new mother physically and emotionally exhausted. This low state is compounded five days later when oestrogen and progesterone, which have been up to a thousand times their normal level, drop back to their pre-pregnancy state. Such huge changes in the endocrinal system cause spontaneous bouts of weeping in three-quarters of women, a condition colloquially known as the baby blues.
The majority of mothers recover within a couple of days, but up to 10 per cent go on to suffer post-natal depression with symptoms which include fatigue, insomnia, anxiety and loss of appetite. Thyroid problems brought on by the pregnancy can also cause low mood and lethargy. Half of this depressed 10 per cent will require psychiatric care, either in hospital or on an outpatient basis.
Fortunately, only two mothers in a thousand actually suffer a psychotic episode, in which they lose touch with reality, as a result of post-natal (also known as post-partum) depression.
Women who come from families with a history of psychiatric illness are up to 80 per cent more likely to suffer an episode of severe post-natal psychoses than women without such histories. Unfortunately, a new mother who suffers such a depressive episode is 50 per cent more likely to suffer a recurrence in subsequent pregnancies.
Though they have originally looked forward to motherhood , a small number of these temporarily-psychotic mothers kill their babies and, sometimes, themselves.
In other instances, clinical levels of depression aren’t necessarily hormonal, instead being caused by the woman’s situation: a poor marriage or relationship, bad housing, poverty and the lack of a supportive mother figure can all contribute to feelings of anger and hopelessness.
DANIELLE WAILS
A Newcastle barmaid, Danielle had a history of failed relationships which had included violence. She was known to social services and to mental health charities.
When she was 20, she found out that she was expecting her first child – her sister-in-law would later say that she’d deliberately become pregnant in order to hold on to her new boyfriend, 22-year-old Robert Gallon. But, a few weeks later she said that she wanted a termination; that she couldn’t cope with a child. Her boyfriend looked shocked and talked her out of it, promising that they would be a family. He had already fathered a son, now two, that he didn’t see because the mother had moved away, but he liked the idea of fatherhood.
The couple moved in together and Danielle gave up work but she called Robert so often at the building site where he worked that his boss became
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