I have no sympathy for the man who lost his job and killed his

5 children- or his wife, who reportedly came up with the idea. And I don't believe that they did it simply because they lost their jobs. Yes, being poor sucks. Losing employment sucks. And if the guy was telling the truth in his suicide/murder note, hid former supervisor sucks. But he lost my sympathy when he blew the out the brains of his 5 small children. That's fucking murder. And what kind of terror did those kids go through? People are rightfully exorcised over the mother on trial for beating Iwith her boyfriend) her 2 year old child to death. Well, this may not rise to quite that level, but it's still the hideous and supremely selfish murder of 5 little kids.

Lots of people struggle with losing their jobs, losing their homes and living in poverty. They don't murder their children..

that what they did was pretty fucking atrocious. I had read that they killed their children because they didn't want them ending up with strangers...well maybe if the kids were to choose, they would have preferred being with strangers over being dead.

I guess it's the thing that gets me with these murder / suicide folks - they always get the order reversed. They need to do the suicide thing first, then the murder.

I believe there is another chapter in these stories that people don't know about. I remember times when my own father was out of work. He was always the optimist who reassured the family and a new job would come his way.

I think there is a history of abuse behind these stories.

.

that he murdered. AND committed suicide.

It may be unthinkable to you, but they do. And some of them are not people you would ever imagine doing so.

So do some women who lose their husbands. Faced with the reality of having been walked out on and left to feed all those hungry mouths alone, their first instinct may not be to pick up a gun, but it may be to do something more subtle. Such as doctoring the kids' food with an overdose of sleeping pills before gobbling a handful with a few glasses of booze themselves. Or packing everyone into the car while it's running in the garage, with a window down.

Some of them even do it.

Others, horrified at what they found themselves contemplating, manage to shake the thoughts out of their head, then do what they have to do to make sure they and their kids survive.

I think if most people knew how thin the line is that really separates the two, or how close those who did the right thing came to doing the unthinkable, they'd be horrified.

What perhaps too many people don't.


I've had those thoughts, and yes, fought mightily NOT to follow through. And, like you said, I was absolutely horrified that such thoughts would enter my head.

Nobody can ever know what goes on in another person's head, or how that person's soul can be destroyed by an accumulation of things nobody else will ever know.

It's hardly ever just one isolated event...it's a whole lot of events that finally came to a head one day. I think many people just don't understand that, and, as a result, chalk it up to one thing when the truth is that Hope had been dying for a very long time before that.

I think it's safe to say he was a very, very sick man to have committed something as heinous as filicide.:(

to others than do people who are "normal".

;)

In some ways it's been quite unfortunate. I don't share my personal stuff on a discussion board, and I probably won't, but I will say I've decidedly had my share of misfortune- to put it mildly.

"If he fathered 5 fetuses, and had them aborted, the liberals would be dancing in the streets!"

Actually, I haven't found a quote like this ... yet ... but I haven't been looking ...

you know nothing about the human psyche do you. Have some sympathy for those who loose their way, otherwise you sound like a repuklikan!

gosh, isn't that just awful.

...but that sympathy stops when they kill children (or anyone for that matter)

:popcorn:

our house when I was growing up--guess I'm pretty glad he decided not to kill us all because of it. Just looked for work and tightened the ol' belt, like everyone else.

...now.

Not saying what this idiot did was correct, it was not, but just saying times have indeed changed since the 50's to the 80's when most of our parents were working or looking for work.

mind-altering drugs in your system? I'm pretty sure those standards were around in the 70's or eighties. Thank God.

what, you think lots of the people writing and reading here on DU haven't at one point in their lives, committed a crime by smoking and/or buying weed and/or using other mind altering substances?

Clue: Just because you did'nt get busted by the cops, doesn't make you innocent of committing a crime in the first place.

Just grin and bare it .

clothes, etc... and in later years they (rightly) bragged about it. Nobody got shot.

let them slowly starve to death?

Otherwise, you are one scary individual.

:scared: (checking the freezer for frozen pizza)

I don't know how severe a depression you may have suffered. But some people are that way. They see the world so dark, and their children's future so much darker, that putting them out of their misery is the best choice.

And whatever you may think of the act, you have no right to condemn someone for their take on their personal situation. What would you advise a man in that state, go whistle a Disney tune and buy something at Wal-Mart? It is a terrible thing to kill children, but it's worse that Bush has brought this nation to this damned state where such an action is a father's only way out.

Save your rage and your outrage for the rich and the Republicans who caused it. And, unlike the cowardly Democrats in Congress, if you are that outraged, you might consider taking appropriate punitive action against those rich bastards.

But certainly for losing his job. No need to try to make a big, lefty-screed "society" statement about it (WalMart?). He went nuts and killed his babies for what amounts to a very common personal setback. Never heard of unemployment? Fuck him, hope he burns in hell.

His children were in no danger of fucking starving to death. Virtually the only children who starve to death in this country are those whose parents or guardians visit that upon them.

:hi:

that's not the only option. Losing money doesn't have to be a death sentence.

They could have struggled to feed the family. Like millions of others around the world do.

Welcome to DU! :hi:

These actions are not normal or mentally healthy. Anyone who can commit these heinous acts whether they act alone or not has some major problems.

"Lots of people struggle with losing their jobs, losing their homes and living in poverty. They don't murder their children.. " - EXACTLY - this is not a healthy reaction to what they've gone through.

I have no compassion for anyone who murders children. Compassion for the little angels he killed in his fit of madness, yes. For the father, nothing.

That may be why the other couple got less sympathy.

Believe me - my heart bleeds for those kids and the entire family. I just can't think he wasn't mentally ill on some level to be able to do what he did.

For that I feel sympathy for his tortured mind and be able to be heartbroken for the loss of the kids.

but then, I have the ability to not see the world in simply a black/white situation. Having to settle on he's either a murderer on one end or a victim on the other doesn't play with me. Somewhere in between is more like it.

because I have been so depressed myself that I've thought about doing some pretty awful things that, at the time, made sense to me because I was in such a bad place mentally.

Unless someone has been there themselves, they really don't have a right to judge anyone who has.

I'm not even sure I could explain the excruciatingly painful thought processes that go on in such a person's head. It's impossible to fully convey the complete and utter Hell that resides there.

Some people murder their children and run away. Or maybe even stay, and make up a story.

Others murder their children and then take their own lives. The tragedy of these acts is unspeakable...to feel that hopeless and helpless. I can literally feel their pain.

Now waiting for your heroic jeremiad concerning child molestation.

I certainly hope you don't have sympathy; that would mean you know how it feels to be a mass murderer. You can,
however, feel a modicum of empathy for the man in the beginning of the chain of events. You're free to get off the bus
well before murder.

Some people would like to adopt children. The father was a murderer...cold blooded plain and clear.

That is F'ed Up if there are really posters here who think he did the right thing.

He saw his world ending. I'm certain that TV news, with its doom and gloom, helped him to that point. And Limbaugh-like talk radio encouraged him to that despair.

Have some pity, if not sympathy, for that man. Consider what would drive a man to that point. Don't blame the man. Because you might find yourself in a state of mind where killing YOUR children would be an act of mercy. A few more months of economic news should do it for a lot of people.

Child murder is particularly despicable.

Bury his remains at the local landfill.

The man is a murderer of children, accursed be his soul.

There are a LOT of people who will be killing their children, rather than letting them starve to death. Remember that old man from last week who froze to death in his house, because the power company cut him off? He would have probably killed his children too, if he had them, and had the means to do so.

When YOU lose your job and are starving, YOU will kill your children too. Keep your paltry judgments to yourself.

I have the impression that he didn't lift a finger to avail himself of any of it.

often do not recognize that there is something wrong with them.

It's entirely possible to be clinically depressed for years and not even know it. In fact, I've seen people who were depressed totally deny it. Sometimes they don't know they're depressed, and sometimes they're afraid of the stigma attached to people who might have to be on meds or get therapy.

They go along trying to live as best they can never knowing they can feel so much better. Then one day something snaps.

It's all part of the disease of depression.

are doing so in great pain and with depression so bad they can't see hope on a good day. Throw one too many bad conditions on top of those already weary shoulders, and there are many with no ability to cope or see anyway to entertain hope for any sort of solution.

There are so many for whom just getting up and going to work takes all they have. IT takes little to put some beyond the reach of functioning any more.

We don't take care of mental health care in America. We do tend to stigmatize too many who need it and the few who are in good enough shape to ask for it. (And those who ask for help really are in better shape; they have a glimmer of self-love to know they deserve to feel better and just enough energy to seek it out.)

Been there, know what that dark place is like. An know too many who have not been in that place will never understand the pain and complete hopelessness.

Empathy is good, close observation of a loved one with chronic depression is often helpful, but experience is really the only accurate teacher of just how dark a place the human mind can be stranded.

Thank you for your kind, rational, helpful post.

edited for typo

People who commit suicide are often successful at hiding their problems from other people. I've witnessed it several times among acquaintences, including a coworker who killed himself in 2003.

Not logical thinking. I agree that most people do not turn to murder/ suicide when they lose their financial standing--but most people are not suffering from severe depression (mental illness).

Seems the parents were under investigation. Maybe not cold blooded murder, but severe depression, but still....who am I to judge though. I feel sorry for all of them.

6 months in an apartment before he found another job.

At no point did he think of killing us, his family, because he was sad.

but how do you know what your father thought or didn't think?


And even if he didn't think it, maybe the reason why he didn't was because he wasn't psychologically primed for that sort of thing.


As many people have pointed out here, "normal" people don't do things like this. A person has to be at the absolute and final end of his or her rope. We have absolutely NO idea what this man's life was like up to the day he did this horrible thing...

some additional financial assistance, and went out every day looking for a new job.

I don't care how "at the end of your rope" a person is, what gives them the right to kill their kids because they didn't want them to go to foster care?

Did they ask their kids what they preferred? To die with a bullet in the head or live in foster care?

I feel sorry for this medical technician and his wife for losing their jobs. I've lost several over the past 15 years before starting out on my own.

However, I despise both of them for killing their kids.

that doesn't mean he never had thoughts.

People who stoically trudge through things like this are often the ones most likely to do something desperate. I don't know if you knew that, but it's true.


And nobody is suggesting that the man "had the right" to kill his kids to keep them from going to foster care or whatever else. Of course nobody has that right. What people ARE saying is that in his state of mind it may have been the only option that made sense TO HIM.

What he did was horrific, and there is no excuse, but nevertheless I feel some compassion for this man and his wife as well, who seemed to make a suicide "pact" when they were fired.

What a beautiful family. What a terrible outcome.

You can tell from his letter that he was absolutely in the pit of hell. It's hard to be rational at that point.

I'm not condoning or excusing it, only admitting that when I learned more about the situation I had real pangs of sympathy for this man and his wife.

Yes, that was my instant reaction to the news when I first came across the article (not on this thread, thankfully).



I didn't read his letter, but it's obvious to me that this was a terrible tragedy and a waste mostly likely attributable to badly compromised mental health. It's especially horrible that anyone would feel so completely isolated, fearful, and final about what could have been a temporary setback, rather than the end of everything for him and his family. There probably were people who would help them but he was unable to believe this.

you wrote:

I didn't read his letter, but it's obvious to me that this was a terrible tragedy and a waste mostly likely attributable to badly compromised mental health. It's especially horrible that anyone would feel so completely isolated, fearful, and final about what could have been a temporary setback, rather than the end of everything for him and his family. There probably were people who would help them but he was unable to believe this.


After the fact, people come out of the woodwork to say, "If only he had come to us, we could have helped him". I've seen it happen so many times after a tragedy of this type.

And the truth of it is...it's bullshit.

Too many people go looking for help, and for some reason or another it's just not there. Programs get cut...their incomes are too high for financial aid (although they're struggling to pay bills)...mental health isn't considered part of Health Insurance benefits...whatever.

It's possible that this man may have tried in the past to get help but was turned away, and just got more and more depressed.

So anyway, on the news today was a person who expressed sorrow over this latest event and who gave the usual spiel, "People don't need to resort to violence if they feel hopeless and helpless"...or something to that effect.

Yeah...right.

I'll bet lots of survivors of Hurricane Katrina were told the same thing just before the door got shut in their faces when they went looking for help.

I agree with you...there is no shame in compassion. I just wonder why so many people think there is shame in it...

:(

And you're absolutely right. I've been there myself years ago :(

Thank you

I put myself in the place of perhaps being this guy's mom or sister or something.

I would be absolutely devastated. I don't even know if I could find it in myself to hate the man or be angry with him. I think I would feel an awful sense of guilt, like maybe there was something...some tiny little sign I, as a family member, should have seen. Is there some way I could have prevented it by calling social services or offering to take the kids in for a while until they got on their feet again. Because it's very likely that, in his own warped way, he may have been trying to spare his children the pain of being poor.

My life would forever be haunted by thoughts of how terrible the pain must have been for him to have done such a thing.

I think people do not really realize how awful it is to be depressed and hopeless. They keep saying, "He could have done this, he should have done that"...but they just don't understand.

:(