Family Violence: Homicide 203Arts, 1989). There is no consistency in the sentencing of these women and verdicts
depend largely on the jury of each particular case and the differences from crime to
crime. Currently, few women are acquitted based upon battered woman's syndrome.
Another form of homicidal violence that occurs within the family is the killing
of children by their parents. Fifty-seven percent of the murders of children under the
age of 12 have been committed by the victims' parents (Dawson & Langan, 1994).
In October, 1994, Susan Smith and her husband stood in front of media cameras
and pled for the return of their two sons who had reportedly been kidnapped by
a Black man with a gun. For 9 days the country prayed for the safe return of the
Smiths' children. It was later discovered that it was the tearful mother the public had
seen on the news who was the actual killer. It was hard to imagine that a mother
could drive her car into a lake with her two young boys strapped into their seats.
As outstanding as it may seem, infanticide, the killing of children by their parents,
and neonaticide, the killing of one's infant, is a common cause of childhood deaths
(Dawson & Langan, 1994).
Pitt and Bale (1995) highlighted the characteristic differences between parents
who commit infanticide as opposed to neonaticide. The results indicated that moth-
ers in the neonaticide group were significantly younger than the mothers in the
infanticide group. The mothers in the infanticide group were more likely to suffer
from depression or psychoses and have histories of attempted suicide. "Eighty-eight
percent of the infanticide mothers were married, while eighty-one percent of the
neonaticide mothers were unwed" (Pitt & Bale, 1995, p. 378),
There are a variety of reasons that parents kill their children. Explanations range
from postpartum depression to schizophrenia. Postpartum depression is a mental
disorder that occurs with new mothers shortly after they give birth. According to
the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV) (1994), postpartum depression often presents
with episodes of delusions in which the mother feels that the infant is possessed
or of hallucinations that tell her to kill the child. Not all incidents of postpartum
depression present with delusions or hallucinations, but there are suicidal ideations,
obsessional thoughts of violence toward the child, and psychomotor agitation.
Postpartum depression has gained the acknowledgment of many in the mental
health field but little is known about its causes. Some have hypothesized that envi-
ronmental stressors associated with becoming a parent, along with the immediate
demands required of the parent, can overwhelm and cause this disorder in even the
most psychologically sound mother (Ewing, 1997). Hormonal changes have also
been reported to be a factor in explaining the incidence of severe depression and
unusual actions by some mothers after the birth of their children (Ewing, 1997).
Postpartum depression is more likely to occur in women who have experienced it
with previous children.
Schizophrenics have been found guilty of infanticide. Depending on the defense
team's strategy, many of these women will plead insanity due to their disorder.
Most likely, these women would not be considered the victims of postpartum