Boston Woman Murders Her Two Kids--and It's Men's Fault
August 8th, 2007 by Glenn Sacks, MA for Fathers & Families
"As Boston police probed whether a Roslindale mother in the throes of despair may have murdered her two young children, relatives and friends of the woman, who is hospitalized with stab wounds, described her as a lost soul who clings to abusive men."
Two children have been murdered, but the killer isn't bad--she's a "lost soul" who is "in the throes of despair" because she is the victim of "abusive men." Apologies for violent women are standard in the mainstream media--somehow it's never her fault, and is usually a man's fault. (To read more examples, click here and here).
This time it's the Boston Herald--a conservative newspaper--making excuses for a murderous mommy. Some would point out that both authors here are women, but men are actually worse about making excuses for violent women than women are.
The story is below. The neighbors' memorial for the two slain children is pictured.
A life in turmoil: Mystery shrouds slain kids’ murders
By Jessica Van Sack and Michele McPhee
Boston Herald, 7/31/07
As Boston police probed whether a Roslindale mother in the throes of despair may have murdered her two young children, relatives and friends of the woman, who is hospitalized with stab wounds, described her as a lost soul who clings to abusive men.
Relatives, friends and co-workers identified the mother as Angela Lopez, 30, and her children as Dennis, 10, and Jasmine, 12.
Police responding to a Sunday night call for a suicidal woman had to kick in an air-conditioning unit to gain entry to the Maynard Street home, where a high-ranking BPD source said they found the bodies of the children tucked in their beds and the mother brutally stabbed in what many believe was a self-inflicted attack.
The children may have been suffocated or forced to ingest poison, the source said. BPD officials said Lopez was not able to cooperate with investigators yesterday, and she remains hospitalized.
“It was a confusing scene,” said one BPD source who added that the mother’s blood trail may have led to erroneous initial reports that the children had also been stabbed.
BPD spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll said investigators have not yet determined how the two died. “We are awaiting the results of an autopsy,” Driscoll said.
Lopez’s cousin, Nilda Lopez, yelled out in shock, “Why? How!” upon learning the tragic fate of her cousin’s little girl and boy. “Que paso?” she cried to relatives on the phone before heading to the hospital where her cousin worked.
Her eyes brimming with tears, Nilda Lopez said she last saw her cousin on duty Friday in the reception area of the urology department at Children’s Hospital before she abruptly quit.
“She was crying,” said Nilda Lopez. adding that her cousin recently complained about problems in her relationship. “I told her she could come stay with me if she wanted to.”
She said her cousin Angela had broken up with her boyfriend, also an employee at Children’s, because “he played her.” But Nilda Lopez had little indication of the horrific turn of events that would follow.
Read the full article here.
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August 8th, 2007 at 1:08 am
I get your point her, Glenn. But it seems to me, the reporters "blemed the man" because that's what they were told by her friends and relatives! This is a bigger problem than in the media -- it's bled into our society. This is more the fault of the Oprah types than these reporters. They're just repeating the words of people hopped up on too many talk shows.
August 8th, 2007 at 1:21 am
just face it, men have been come the new escape goat for all of women ills.
August 8th, 2007 at 2:38 am
So her boyfriend leves her and she kills her kids, and now aperently leaving is considered abuse. Ever wonder why guys like Lykis are so popular with thier advice to never get married and never get involved with a woman who has kids? Its articles like this. Sure the homo/suicideal psychos freinds said she liked abuse men, but did the reporters bother to track down any of these men and see if they were actually abusive?
I'm really starting to get pissed, its entirley pervasive - the other day I was evesdropping on couple of women in a coffe shop, they were gossiping about what a bastard their mutual freinds husbnd was for having an affair and cheting on his wife, they then went on to discuss their own affairs justifiying it by saying their husbnds werent satisfying them.
I normally dont inject myself into others conversations but I was pissed, I asked the two of them why if a man cheated it was because he couldnt kep it in his pants, but if a woman cheated it was still a man fault, I asked them if maybe their freind wasnt satisfying her husband and suggested it was her fault for the guy cheating(dont really fell that way but I hate hypocrites) and then went on to suggest that maybe if the two of them, I belive I called them harrpies, bothered to tell their husbands what they liked rather than fake all of their orgazms, maybe they wouldnt have had to have an affair to begin with.
And while we're at it anyone rememer the season finalle of desperate houseviews??? The guy gets pissed at the blonde contantly lying to him tells her to go to hell and she kills herself - who wants to place bets that when the new season rolls around he gets blamed?
It really is sick how far it goes, quite frankly at this point I can only hope that the sons and husbans of these nut job feminests get screwed over by the system that would suit me just fine.
August 8th, 2007 at 3:34 am
This goes to a crucial point which infests our culture: Males are guilty, females may or may not be guilty. All males are at all times guilty and it doesn't much matter what the male is guilty of as he is guilty of everything.
This concept ripples through our culture creating havoc which will lead to chaos. This concept defines all males as demons and all females as infants. It is sticking thinking of the worst sort.
August 8th, 2007 at 5:09 am
I agree with Tony's point - don't shoot the messenger. Here in the UK, often when MRAs accuse the BBC of anti-male bias, the BBC is simply reporting the results of a report by someone like the Home Office.
August 8th, 2007 at 6:08 am
If you just read the first few lines of the piece, you'd believe the current boyfriend had been pushing her around, hitting her etc. Instead, we actually learn that he's just a 'player' (a very loose term that could mean anything from his liking to flirt occasionally to having had full-blown affairs. No proof offered, and it's cited as the opinion of ONE woman).
Her record doesn't look that hot - take this quote from the piece:
"The Department of Social Services received a complaint of child neglect against the mother and her then-boyfriend in 1998, said spokesman Michael McCormack. The case was closed in June 2000."
Obviously no details here, but she is named as having been investigated along with the then boyfriend. Fair enough, she was presumably cleared or her behaviour changed, but compared to what we know about the current BF (not much from this article) who looks more like the problem here?
August 8th, 2007 at 6:24 am
I don't even know what to say here.
I mean, people are too sympathetic of women already. But you'd think the deaths of innocent children would stir them out of their bias and allow them to actually blame a woman for something she did!
August 8th, 2007 at 9:41 am
I agree that this is a pervasive issue. This is one example of how responsibility for someone's actions are laid at the feet of someone else. Men aren't the only target, though. In this example, a man is assigned blame for a woman's actions, but the overall problem is larger than that. The overall problem is that we no longer teach personal responsibility in any form. This woman killed her children... period. She didn't do it "because of" anything. She did it. Period. In the same way that the woman who spilled McDonald's coffee in her lap wanted a free ride, in the same way that the burglar that fell through the roof while breaking and entering sued and won... that's the issue. Men are the scapegoat often, I agree, but it's a symptom of a larger problem -- the problem is lack of personal responsibility. And you bet it's pervasive.
August 8th, 2007 at 9:47 am
“It’s unbelievable to me. Good lord have mercy,”’ said Lula Fisher, 64, a former neighbor. “She loved her kids so much.”
“She was so close to them. She didn’t want anything to happen to them,” Fisher added, describing the girl, Jasmine, as a carbon copy of her mother, with long hair and bright eyes, and Dennis as a little boy who pedaled furiously on his bicycle despite his asthma. “They were the type you wanted to live around.”
Fisher said Lopez recently bought a motorcycle for her boyfriend and was upset that their plans to buy a house fell through.
The Department of Social Services received a complaint of child neglect against the mother and her then-boyfriend in 1998, said spokesman Michael McCormack. The case was closed in June 2000.
Lets see,
1) mother kills her kids
2) has a history of child abuse
Yet we are lead to believe she is really a loving mother who would never do anything to harm her children?
Lost souls aren't responsible, are they?
August 8th, 2007 at 11:40 am
Lujip said: "Ever wonder why guys like Lykis are so popular."
He means talk radio host Tom Leykis, whose show is pro-male and who has had on guests such as Warren Farrell. There's also a lot of rauncy, but he sure is funny.
Episodes of his show can be streamed or downloaded here: http://www.971freefm.com/pages/4096.php
August 8th, 2007 at 3:21 pm
Tom Lykis is a jackass that makes a lot of money pandering to idiots.
August 8th, 2007 at 5:42 pm
Funny thing when I see these news stories, but they almost seem to implicitly treat the children as the mother's chattel property which she has the seeming right to dispose of as she sees fit. Perhaps this is in part because the articles go on and on about the poor mother and her all the difficulties she has faced, etc.
It always seems to be a story about the "poor, suffering, struggling mother".
Well, what about the poor, dead, MURDERED children?
Who cares about them?
Somebody ought to, and that "mother" should certainly not be getting all this sympathy-ink in the press.
Unbelievable.
It almost says to women: "Hey, if your feeling very depressed and you want some attention or are just feeling desperate, everyone will finally pay attention to you and give you loads of sympathy and understanding if you just..."
- kill your kids
- shoot your husband in the back
or whatever enters your poor, troubled little head. But whatever happens, be assured that you won't be criticized in the press for murdering anyone. In fact, you could be made a martyr for having suffered so!
To me, that is the wrong message to send to troubled women. The press and the courts should humiliate and excoriate such women publicly and without mercy.
That is a way to help save at least some of the kids who might be next. Rationalizing or otherwise sugar coating such murderous deeds is a crime by the press and will do nothing to prevent the next such incident -- and might make it more likely.
August 8th, 2007 at 8:22 pm
First thing that came to my mind was: oh, hell no.
My ex was mentally and emotionally abusive to me, but not once, NOT EVER did I ever consider killing our child let alone myself over it. This was her doing and no one else's. Period. The sad part is, even if she is put on trial, she will be found mentally unstable and unable to assist in her own defense. Then she will spend X-number of years in a mental institution and that will be the end of it. Until, of course, she meets some other man who is clueless about her past and starts all over again.
August 8th, 2007 at 9:12 pm
"relatives and friends of the woman...described her as a lost soul who clings to abusive men."
Other than her cousin who says the boyfriend "played" her, whatever that means, I couldn't find anything in the article to back up the author's blurb - it's almost as if the newspaper felt it had to fabricate some kind of "abuse excuse" in order to cover the story at all!
As Glenn pointed out in other cases, you'll find that the murdered children will be not be humanized as much as the mother - we get to see candles and a memorial, but pictures and video of them as "real" children will be strangely absent from the media, if not the trial itself. (Prosecutions of these murderer-mothers seems to be half-hearted at best these days...)
If the kids had been abducted and killed by a stranger (cf. Danielle Van Dam) there would be childhood video and pics all over the place.
August 10th, 2007 at 12:04 am
[...] 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 [...]
August 10th, 2007 at 10:59 am
[...] downtrodden victim of men. Lopez recently slew her two children--to learn more, see my blog posts Boston Woman Murders Her Two Kids--and It's Men's Fault and More Excuses for Boston Murdering [...]
August 10th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
JeanB Says:
My ex was mentally and emotionally abusive to me.
I wonder why you mostly see and read these two adjectives that describe the type of abuse a woman endures when the abuse is not physical.
August 11th, 2007 at 9:32 pm
DTaylor,
Because that is what happened, that's why. Ever been mentally and/or emotionally abused? If not, then do not comment on it or question it.
He did raise his hand to me, over me actually, one time. We were not yet married and I told him that if his hand came down on me he would never see me again. I meant it and he knew it. There were other times over the years that I could see in his eyes how much he wanted to hit me. The mental abuse started in earnest after our daughter was born. Guess he thought he 'had me' lock, stock and barrel at this point. But he knew that physical would have been going too far. For one, he is military, if reported he would have lost everything and been put in jail no doubt about it. For another, he did watch his father beat his mother (then turn around and beat him and his sisters), he didn't want to be like his father. Was I scared when he acted like he wanted to hit me? Yes, I was. Did I think he really would? I didn't know then and still don't know now. But I do know if he had it would have been one time and one time only. I would not go back for more and he probably would have ended up behind bars, even if for just a short time. I would not report it out of revenge or hate, but because it is wrong.
Having said that, I do not blame all men for this, so you can get off your high horse now. I do not hate my ex, either. I am well past that. All I did in my previous post was state a fact, one that I felt was relevant to the story. I am a big supporter of men's/father’s rights. All you did was take a simple statement of fact (MY fact from MY previous life) and twist it to try to make me look like the man haters of the world. Pay attention because I have been posting here for some time. I am not a man hater, just a matter-of-fact poster.
August 11th, 2007 at 10:07 pm
DTaylor,
Perhaps I was a bit harsh. I do apologize. You did hit a nerve.
Maybe I can explain just a bit better what things were like after the divorce. This part starts about one year after the divorce was final, about 1.5 years after we physically split. My BF, bless his heart, was so very patient with me through it all.
There were times my BF would say or do something that would literally make me flinch, and for a time he didn’t understand why. It finally dawned on him that maybe there were some leftover issues that I still needed to deal with from my former marriage, issues that I didn’t even realize were so bad during my marriage let alone after the fact. Until he pointed out to me that I would flinch, I didn’t even realize I was doing it or that something was still lingering in the back of my mind. He encouraged me to talk, which led to realization, which led to tears, which led to true healing. I spent many nights crying on his shoulder, so many that I started to worry he would think this was all there was to me and would leave. He didn’t, he is still here several years later, and I am truly healed. I do credit my BF with my healing and thank God every day that he is here and in my life.
So, when I say I was mentally and emotionally abused, I really was and it was really bad. Much worse than I even realized while still married to my ex.