Wow. Just...wow

[NMMNG]

Mom confesses she killed autistic child

PEKIN, Ill. - A woman accused of killing her autistic daughter testified Friday that she attempted to suffocate the 3-year-old with a pillow three days before she succeeded with a plastic garbage bag.

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In a videotaped confession played in court Thursday, McCarron said she began having thoughts of hurting her daughter a year before the May 2006 slaying but put them out of her mind. On the day of the killing, though, the thoughts were stronger than ever.

<snip>

McCarron, a former pathologist, testified she felt responsible for Katie's autism because she allowed the child to get vaccinated. Some people believe autism is caused by a mercury-containing preservative once used in childhood vaccines.

<snip>

Karen McCarron said on the videotape that she took her daughter's body back to her own house and put her in bed. She then went to the store, bought ice cream and returned to her mother's home to get the garbage bag because, "if things get bad, their house would be searched."

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:grr:

[TZ]

1. and some people think woos are harmless

although it sounds like this woman was mentally ill. However, a former PATHOLOGIST? Thats sad....
:wow:

[NMMNG]

2. Mentally ill, probably.

But not insane, IMO.

She killed the child with a bag after chickening out with a pillow. Then after she murdered the child at her mom's house she took the body back to her own house, went out for ice cream, and hid the evidence (the plastic bag). She also admits clearly that she knew what she was doing was wrong.

Antivax woo and religion helped kill that little girl, but the mother still committed the crime. I hope she gets a good stiff sentence. She had other options if she "wanted autism out of her life".



On edit: I've been surfing the Intertubes for more on the mother and I'm feeling more sick than before.

PEKIN — Karen McCarron wished her autistic daughter was dead, said she’d rather have a child with cancer and even refused to call the girl by name before killing her, McCarron’s mother in-law testified Wednesday.

<snip>

All of the witnesses who knew Karen McCarron, a former pathologist who graduated from the Southern Illinois School of Medicine in Springfield, said she was a woman obsessed with curing her daughter’s autism and was a perfectionist who would not accept the fact her daughter wasn’t “indistinguishable” from her peers.

<snip>

Witnesses have said she constantly criticized her daughter’s progress and the team of family members, therapists, teachers and care providers hired to help her.

They said the topic of every conversation with her revolved around curing Katie’s autism. Negativity and hatefulness were ceaseless when she discussed the child, who they say she never hugged, kissed or praised after she was diagnosed with autism.

“She looked at Katie as a problem, and she got rid of her problem,” Jennifer McCarron testified. “There’s nothing more to it than that.”

More

[moggie]

3. I think the vaccine angle is irrelevant in this case

From your link: She said she didn’t want anyone saying her kid was slow. If the child had been free from autism, but suffered from Down's, she would probably still have wound up dead. At first, I wanted to sympathise with the mother, since being the parent of an autistic kid can obviously be desperately difficult, but not now.

Bruno Bettelheim would have loved this woman. She'd be perfect for his cruel "refrigerator mother" theory of autism.

[TZ]

4. I'm not so sure that the vaccine angle is entirely irrelevant

It certainly fed into her illness in some respect.
But I think the angle that is important here is way woos treat autism itself. As if it were worse than cancer, worse than anything else a child could ever develop. Yes, it can be difficult, but its not like all autistics are the same. Some function at VERY high levels (our own Odin2005 has said he is autistic). And if the woos would just STFU and let people hear about the multiple LEGITIMATE options for TREATING it instead of making people desperate for a magic cure things could be much better for parents and autistic children.
I have a coworker whose daughter is literally the Pennsylvania poster child for early intervention. They knew pretty early on she was "different" and instead of knashing their teath and bemoaning the fact of it or looking for a magic cure all, they got her treatment. Now she is in college doing pretty well, living a fairly normal life.
If only people would stop and listen and be rational about this and focus in on helping the child, not finding someone to blame!But I guess thats pretty difficult for many.

[NMMNG]

5. I'm inclined to disagree

Her belief that the vaccines the autism caused her to feel guilty for Katie's autism. That could have been responsible for her anger toward Katie and others (those who accepted Katies autism and those who couldn't "fix" her), and her hatred of/inability to accept the disability itself.

I worked with developmentally disabled adults for over 20 years. Some of the worst "Mothers from Hell", as they're known in the field, were the ones who were nursing guilt trips over their children's disabilities. One woman had a daughter who had been fine until she fell down the steps at 18-months. Another believed that her daughter's Downs Syndrome was caused when she refused to wait until after the delivery for some medical procedure. Of course neither of these parents abused or their children, but guilt works in different ways on different people. Mother one expects that her daughter be treated like the queen bee by staff and throws tantrums if a hair is out of place (overcompensation for her "failure" as a mother). Mother two decided to "keep her baby a baby" and would frantically resist any efforts by staff to treat her like the adult she was. Both of them tried to run every facet of their lives even after placing them in residential care.

Guilt from any source can be responsible for a whole host of behaviors.

[LeftishBrit]

6. I think it might be the other way round (re the guilt)

Parents frequently feel guilty when their children have illnesses or disabilities and will often find something to 'pin' the guilt on, even if this is something obviously impossible, as in the case of the mother who felt that she caused her child to have Downs syndrome by not waiting for a medical treatment after birth. As you say, when they feel guilty they often also try to include others in the blame: their partners, the doctors and other medical professionals, their children's teachers, friends who seem luckier in life, etc. In the current culture, vaccines are a publicized source of guilt and 'Big Pharma' of blame, so many parents will latch on to that. But I suspect that this particular mother would have been guilty and angry and abusive, even without the vaccines angle; and that she probably had some mental illness or personality disorder to start with.

[Orrex]

7. "if things get bad..." IF? What the fuck?

"if things get bad, their house would be searched."

This strikes me as a long-in-coming, cold blooded and thoroughly planned murder.

I accept that the woman may indeed be mentally ill, but it sickens me to think that a jury might have to process a lot of bullshit testimony about the "possibility" that vaccines cause autism.

I can't help wondering about the poor victim's general level of awareness at the time of the murder.

[NMMNG]

8. I agree

I believe she planned it and should be put away for a long time. If she didn't want to take care of her daughter she could have had her put into residential care. This whole thing makes me just sick.