Background: Apologies for violent women are standard in the mainstream media--somehow it's never her fault, and is usually a man's fault. This time it's the Boston Herald--a conservative newspaper--making excuses for a murderous mommy. Angela Lopez murdered her two children, but she isn't bad--she's a "lost soul" who is "in the throes of despair" because--you guessed it--she is the victim of "abusive men."  To learn more, see my blog post Boston Woman Murders Her Two Kids--and It's Men's Fault

First we had an apologia from Jessica Van Sack and Michele McPhee--A life in turmoil: Mystery shrouds slain kids’ murders (Boston Herald, 7/31/07). Now in "Signs ignored too long: Troubled moms unravel despite cries for help", Boston Herald columnist Peter Gelzinis tells us that the poor murdering mommy was (sigh) a "single mother in free fall, a woman unable to break from a cycle of abuse that began in childhood." A 30-year-old woman murders her two children and we sympathize because she (allegedly) had a bad childhood. (To Gelzinis's credit, he does redeem himself to some degree in a subsequent article--stay tuned).

Signs ignored too long: Troubled moms unravel despite cries for help
By Peter Gelzinis
Boston Herald, 8/1/07

The tragedies do not mirror each other exactly. Yet, the sad parallels between the sagas of Angela Lopez and LaVeta Jackson seem all too hauntingly familiar.

Police would come upon each scene in the heat of July, five years apart almost to the day. What awaited them in both cases were the bodies of dead children, along with the added horror of their young mothers whose lives had come apart in a lethal burst of anguish and rage.

Sunday night in Roslindale, the cops were forced to dislodge an air conditioner only to find 10-year-old Dennis Burgos Jr. and his 13-year-old sister, Jasmine, dead in their beds. Nearby was the blood-soaked body of their mother, Angela Lopez, 31.

Homicide investigators have interviewed Lopez, but sources believe she attempted to take her own life by tearing at herself with a knife after allegedly killing her son and daughter. It is unclear whether the children were smothered to death or poisoned.

Yet what’s quickly emerged in the aftermath of Sunday night’s grim discovery is a portrait of a single mother in free fall, a woman unable to break from a cycle of abuse that began in childhood. Nor could she conceal the truth that her life was slipping off the rails from family and friends.

Lopez’s neighbors knew that a chain of events, beginning with the death of a relative, had appeared to overwhelm her. Some tried to offer comfort by assuring her things would change and she would find that perfect someone with whom she could share her life.

On Friday, as she walked away from a job at Children’s Hospital, she left co-workers rattled by her parting words: ‘I love you all,” she told them, “and I love my kids, and that is all you need to know.”

People feared she might be straying close to the edge, but by the time a call was made to the police, it was too late for the children who were her life, according to those shattered friends.

For a time, Angela Lopez’s two children had come under the umbrella of the DSS. But like LaVeta Jackson, some five years before, Angela had convinced social workers that she was up to the challenge of supporting herself and taking care of her children.

In LaVeta Jackson’s case, her schizophrenia appeared to be brought under control with a diet of medication.

“What happened in LaVeta’s case,” recalled one DSS source, “is that she stopped taking her medication and tried to hide it from her family believing the agency would come in and take her kids away from her. Unfortunately some of the family were convinced of that, too.

“Sadly, too many people come to believe that DSS is a children’s agency, when the bulk of what’s done on a daily basis is directed at trying help people become good parents. And LaVeta came to understand this. She was extremely responsible, even telling us at one point that she didn’t think she was ready yet to regain control of her children.”

By the time the police arrived at her in-laws’ home in Dorchester, LaVeta Jackson had already slit the throats of her 6-year-old daughter, Sydney and 3-year-old son, Scott. The knife she used to begin killing herself, she turned on a police officer who had no choice but to shoot her.

“Suicide by cop” was how one source remembered it. “It was one of the hottest days of the summer and whatever demons had returned to haunt that poor woman, had completely taken hold of her.”

Could a 51a or an earlier phone call to the police averted a tragedy in either case? Could two young mothers who waged unsuccessful battles against despair and loneliness be saved from drowning?

It’s hard to say. But the signs were there for people to see. The cries for help may not have been loud enough, but they were constant.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 10th, 2007 at 12:03 am and is filed under Crime/Criminal Justice System/Police, Child Protective Services/Child Welfare System, Sexism, Single Mothers, "Single Mothers by Choice", Child Abuse. You can trackback from your own site.