Another Woman Kills Her Children in Texas

It's really getting to the point where you don't even want to read the newspaper anymore. Today's Houston Chronicle reports that a mother in Hudson Oaks, TX killed herself and 3 of her 4 children by hanging them and hanging herself inside their mobile home. She intended to kill the 4th child, an 8-month-old infant. However, when the bodies were discovered, the baby was still alive and was rescued. The story has an accompanying inset detailing not only another parent murder/suicide in the same town when a woman shot her 3 children and then herself 5 years ago, but several Texas other cases.

The media was abuzz last week with the news of Joshua Mauldin, the Arkansas man who traveled to Galveston, TX, to become a preacher. On May 10, 2007, he burned his baby in the microwave because he was "stressed." His wife claims "the devil" made him do it.

In March, Katie Nadal allegedly maimed her infant son for life by cutting his genitals off and told police the family dog did it. She was arrested in May.

Last week, a child died in a fire in Houston when left alone while the father went to work and the mother was en route home from her job. There's another article in today's Chronicle saying that the child's death highlights the "need for summer daycare programs."

Excuse me, but it would seem to me that the State of Texas needs a whole lot more than summer daycare programs for children whose parents are overwhelmed for whatever reason.

Instead of introducing stupid bills to pay mothers $500 not to have abortions like Sen. Dan Patrick (R-Houston) did this past March -- (Senate Bill 1567) -- maybe they should start allocating money to open up children's shelters for unstable parents who can't care for their kids.

I can't begin to fathom what goes on in the minds of people who harm and/or kill their children, but I can't help but wonder if there was less stigma attached to a parent admitting that he or she wasn't capable of caring for his/her children and if there were more and better support services, would we have less mental breakdowns? Maybe they would voluntarily give up their children before they got to the breaking point.

I don't doubt that some kind family wiil now be willing to adopt and raise the infant who survived the horrible tragedy in Hudson Oaks. I just wish her siblings had gotten that chance.