Free Parents Who Kill--Shocking True Stories of the World's Most Evil Parents by Carol Anne Davis

Devin was 23 months.
    For the next couple of hours, Jennie, her boyfriend and two of his friends partied and she drank double the legal driving limit before she fell asleep at around 5am. As the young mother continued to sleep, the morning sun rose and the car got hotter and hotter. By midday, when she awoke, the temperature in the car was 128 degrees and the boys had cooked to death.
    In court, she claimed that she had planned to speak to her boyfriend about their relationship and then leave, that she hadn’t wanted to party. But her boyfriend’s mates disputed this, saying that she hadn’t told them that her children were locked in the car outside. She also stated that she had periodically checked on her sons by looking down at the car from the motel room’s second floor balcony – but, as the car had tinted windows, it would have been impossible for her to see any signs of distress.
    She was originally charged with first degree murder, but this was later reduced to the charge of aggravated child abuse. The judge described her behaviour at the trial as ‘hostile’ and she was sentenced to 18 years, with the proviso that she’d become eligible for parole after six.

CHAPTER SIX
MURDER-SUICIDE
    S uicide is the most frequent cause of death amongst young mothers, a percentage of whom also murder their children. (28 per cent commit suicide, the rest die of various pregnancy and post-natal complications such as pre-eclampsia and haemorrhaging.) Often the motivation is pure, with the woman believing that she is taking the child or children to ‘a better place.’ These mothers are often suffering from puerperal psychosis, an extreme form of post-natal depression. Two women in a thousand suffer from this, and women with a previous psychiatric history are more susceptible.
SUSAN TALBY
    A nurse by profession, Susan and her salesman husband Richard married at St Oswald’s Catholic Church in Peterborough, UK in 1999. Joseph was born in April 2002, followed by Paul in September 2004. After Paul’s birth Susan suffered from post-natal depression but appeared to have made a good recovery andworked at a branch of the fashion store Next. The family lived in a semi-detached house in Peterborough’s desirable Werrington village and Susan regularly visited her mother and brother who lived nearby. The children also saw Richard’s parents most weekends and sometimes stayed with them for several days. The little boys played football with their dad and with neighbourhood children – in short, Susan had a good support system in the community.
    In late February 2007, Richard prepared to leave on a business trip. His last memories of his family would be ones of happy domesticity, as his wife was playing Scrabble with four-year-old Joe whilst Paul, two, tucked into a sausage roll.
FAMILICIDE
    Some time later, Susan, aged 41, wrote a suicide note. She suffocated the children whilst they slept then went to the landing and hanged herself.
    When Richard returned, he found the bodies. Distraught, he made herculean efforts to revive them but it was too late. The 38-year-old was comforted by neighbours and by relatives. Police said that they were not treating the deaths as suspicious, that it was clearly a murder-suicide.
    The following month Richard Talby released photographs of a smiling Susan with the children, explaining that he wanted people to remember them in happier times. He paid tribute to his wife, recalled the many good times that they had shared and said ‘I loved Sue, Joe and Paul with all my heart.’
DAKSHA EMSON
    Daksha was born in Tanzania in 1966, the eldest daughter of a traditional Indian couple. When she was four, they moved to India, emigrating to England when she was nine.
    Daksha was a beautiful child who did very well at school,but felt different to the rest of her classmates in London. At 18, whilst attending medical school, she attempted suicide for the first time. She was diagnosed with depression but later