<p>This is unbelievably sad.</p>
<p>That poor woman. She was (apparently literally) crazy with grief, everything was falling apart around her, things just kept getting worse and she couldn’t find a way out. The poor daughter, a sweet shining star who trusted her mother. The daughter’s friends, the whole community… it’s so terribly sad.</p>
<p>It is sad - but it also makes me angry. All the mother had to do was reach out to someone - family member - church member - friend - neighbor - and ask for help. She just kept building this house of cards until she felt she had no option but to kill her daughter and then herself. When, if she had asked for help, many options would have been available for them both.</p>
<p>How very sad. I agree. It didn’t have to be this way.</p>
<p>If only… yes, if only she wasn’t suicidal she wouldn’t have killed herself.</p>
<p>I wonder if it’s true that “all she had to do was reach out for help.” I suspect that if she had revealed the extent of her problems-- she apparently committed crimes, remember-- she would have gotten help, or whether she would instead have gotten abuse. Like she’s getting now.</p>
<p>I still can’t understand how the mother could see no possible future for her daughter - killing her, while she wrote out instructions for the future care of the family dogs. But its probably one of those things no one will understand</p>
<p>The mother sounds like she was very seriously depressed. If one is that depressed, one can very much have a distorted idea about the world and one’s options. She probably thought she was doing her daughter a favor by killing her.</p>
<p>There is no sense in trying to make sense of crazy. A similar story last year here on LI when a man took his wife and dtr to visit their other dtr in MD at college, he killed the family dogs before last leaving the house and in a hotel room beat his wife and dtr to death, waited for his college dtr to arrive, killed her and finally himself. It is unbelievable how insane a person can quietly become while going about their very normal life which only they know is falling apart financially and how they can plan to kill those they love because their disordered thinking has them believing that their loved one/s can’t live without them. It is horrific what the human mind is capable of when it goes haywire.</p>
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<p>I think most people can comprehend how someone gets to the point of being hopeless and ultimately suicidal. I think what people have a harder time understanding is why it was necessary to take the daughter out too.</p>
<p>But as someone above pointed out, you can’t always “make sense” of the actions of someone who is not in their right mind.</p>
<p>“I think most people can comprehend how someone gets to the point of being hopeless and ultimately suicidal. I think what people have a harder time understanding is why it was necessary to take the daughter out too.”</p>
<p>She didn’t want the daughter to deal with her mother’s death, having no money, home, car, and no college acceptances. </p>
<p>The mother likely thought her and her daughter’s lives were hopeless. More than likely, she thought that by killing her daughter, she was saving her daughter a lifetime of grief and poverty.</p>
<p>The mother likely did not know she herself was mentally ill. She thought she was looking at things rationally. Otherwise, she probably would have sought help.</p>
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<p>This whole story has chilled me to the bone. Apparently her church and some family members knew she was having financial problems, but I guess not the extent. I know the job market is not good and that the mom was having tremendous grief issues, but it’s so odd that, when left in dire financial distress, she sought a non paying job (mayor) in lieu of a full time job. I’m sure she knew lawyers and accountants to whom she could have laid out her financial situation…they would have provided good, free advice. </p>
<p>In the past few years, I’ve known a few women who have lost their husbands. I’ve thought I’ve been a caring friend…but I doubt that I would have stepped in to give specific financial or other personal advice unless asked.</p>
<p>^^^^Another puzzling thing about her financial situation. Her mortgage, taken out in 1998, was 282K. Her house values at well over 400K. I don’t understand why she didn’t at least try to sell it and get her significant equity out of it rather than letting it go to foreclosure. I know that would be a blow, but better to sell and have some money to live on than constantly having to struggle to make mortgage payments that were too much to handle.</p>
<p>Who knows, maybe she had a second mortgage on it or there were other factors at play.</p>
<p>Perhaps she had judgments against her for medical bills, but maybe not since the press would have found them. (They found a lien for HOA dues, so they would have found judgments.)</p>
<p>What no one has said, and I guess would be too tacky to ask, was whether the D had the grades/class rank to have conceivably gotten into UT. If my kids came home and said that someone who was not at least in the top 15% of the class (and was not a recruited athlete) got into UT, I’d be skeptical. But of course, I’d never call BS on the family. This is probably haunting the mom’s friends, the D’s friends and their parents. Probably lots of things that didn’t make sense that they are remembering, but who would actually get into someone else’s business enough to have made a difference.</p>
<p>^^^^Certainly most would not question a student who claimed to get into X university. Given that most of us are not privy to any particular student’s class rank and/or test scores, it probably would not occur to many people to even wonder about it, much less ask probing questions.</p>
<p>"This whole story has chilled me to the bone. Apparently her church and some family members knew she was having financial problems, but I guess not the extent. I know the job market is not good and that the mom was having tremendous grief issues, but it’s so odd that, when left in dire financial distress, she sought a non paying job (mayor) in lieu of a full time job. "</p>
<p>I’m guessing that she was too grief stricken to make better decisions. I remember functioning like a zombie after my mother died. I can’t imagine how I might cope after losing a husband to illness, and raising a teen on my own and having financial problems.</p>
<p>As a wise person once asked … why in these situations does the gunperson get the order wrong? Clearly the women was troubled but it is very tough road to find sympathy from me for someone who kills their own child.</p>
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<p>Here’s a question for you: If while you were functioning like a zombie, you had started to make extremely irresponsible decisions (financial or otherwise) is there anyone in your life who would have/could have stepped forward to help out? I just don’t know if I would interfere unless asked.</p>
<p>Unless this lady had very close friends- who would know that she had started making a string of bad decisions? Who would think to question whether isolated bad choices = going over the edge? And as NSM points out- the lady in question probably didn’t think she needed psychological help because of her metal illness. And the daughter may have been too grief stricken and just too immature to recognize the depth of her mother’s despair. </p>
<p>This is a horrible situation. As for selling the house to get out the equity- well that would be a rational decision in light of the circumstances. But, this lady was well beyond rational.</p>
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<p>I guess her church knew she was in some degree of financial trouble and they had helped her out. But in this economy, they’ve probably helped other congregants facing foreclosure as well. Even if he knew the situation pretty well, would a church pastoral care minister come out and say, “Resign as mayor and devote yourself to a full time job and sell your house to get the equity.” I really doubt it.</p>
<p>I agree missypie. When stories like this come out, everyone wonders why no one saw the warning signs. As a survivor of my brother’s suicide (no murder involved), I can say that survivor’s guilt is heavy- the closest people do go over and over each small and large event in the past to see if there was any way they could have predicted and then stopped the action. The fact is that even with big red flags, no one can make the person in question accept help - (and many don’t think they need help- that is how far gone they are).</p>