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The most horrific true crime stories are those in which a mother harms her child, instead of offering love and protection.  In fact, they are so shocking, stories of mothers murdering or making their children ill, capture our attention. “Parental hazard carries no gender distinction: Mothers kill their children with nearly the same frequency as fathers. From 1976 to 1999, 30 percent of murdered children under 5 were killed by their mothers and 31 percent by their fathers, according to the U.S. Department of Justice..” (2)

Nearly half of the mothers who kill their children do so believing they are helping their children.

Andrea Yates is an example of an altruistic mother, who feels she is helping her children by killing them. She drowned her five children, so God would take them while they were still innocent.  

Andrea Yates suffered from post partum depression which deepened with each child she had.  Andrea did most of the work caring for her three young boys, Noah, John and Paul, while her husband Russell Yates worked to support the family.  The parents became involved in a fundamentalist religious group and eschewed material possession, downsizing their home to a mobile home and then a bus.  The birth of her fourth son, Luke, deepened her depression and she attempted suicide twice before being hospitalized.  The birth of her daughter, Mary, sent Andrea into the abyss. She was hospitalized and medicated, but she drifted in no man’s land filled with delusion and hallucinations. 

Andrea didn’t reveal the severity of her delusions to her family or doctors.  She was having conversations with Satan and believed she would be punished if she spoke of them.  On June 20, 2001, Russell Yates went to work and Andrea drowned all five of her children. She called 911 and then her husband.  Andrea told her husband all the children were hurt and he needed to come home.

Andrea confessed to the murders.  She said she loved her children, though not in the ‘right’ way.  Andrea thought she was a bad mother because her children were not developing in an academic or righteous sense.  Whether Yates believed she was saving her children or if she was overwhelmed with the responsibility of caring for them, she was found guilty of murder.

Yvette Yallico was convicted of drowning her daughter, Catherine. Yvette acted strangely and unemotional when police arrived on the scene.  Yvette was washing Catherine’s hair and started pushing her head under the water. Yvette claims she was delusional, hearing friends speaking to her and arguing about drowning the baby or not.  Yallico was institutionalized five different times beginning at the age of 12. She was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and a range of other mental illnesses. 

Other mothers murder their children because the child is unwanted. Such was the case with Susan Smith, who pushed her car with her two small boys strapped in the backseat, into a lake.

The drama began in October 1994, when Smith made a public plea for help in finding her two sons, Michael and Alex. She claimed the boys were taken in a car jacking by an unidentified black man.  Smith told police she intended to kill herself, but changed her mind at the last minute and jumped from the car.  Her father committed suicide and Susan had attempted suicide at least once in her life. She was sexually abused by her stepfather and continued an affair with him once she was an adult. Smith also had an affair with her boss and craved a relationship with him.  When he told her the affair was over because he didn’t want the complication of children in his life, she became desperate to rid herself of them.

Smith’s elaborate lies and cover up in the national media demonstrated her manipulative nature. She acted so purposefully and deliberately the murders appeared to be premeditated. She was convicted of two counts of murder.

In December, 1989 Jim Styers reported that a boy in his care, 4 year old Christopher Milke, disappeared from Phoenix Metrocenter Mall.  Christopher was the son of Jim’s roommate, Debbie Milke.  Police conducted a search, broadcasting Christopher’s photograph on the news. Styers was questioned and he eventually admitted another man, Roger Scott, was with him at the mall when Christopher disappeared. Roger Scott confessed that he was involved in a plot to kill Christopher Milke. Scott said the three didn’t go to the mall; they went to the desert and Styers shot Christopher at the urging of his mother.  Scott led police to Christopher’s body and Milke, Scott and Styers were all arrested.

Debbie had an active social life, and some thought Christopher interfered with her lifestyle.  Jim Styers was infatuated with Debbie and tried to please her, including watching Christopher when Debbie wanted to go out.  Debbie was 26 years old when she was tried, facing the death penalty for conspiracy to murder. 

The most damning evidence was a confession obtained by Det. Armando Saldate of the Phoenix Police Department.  At the beginning Saldate wrote that “Deborah did not admit to her involvement in the conspiracy, but did admit she felt sorry for her son due to his father’s negative influence.”  Saldate quoted Milke as saying, “Look, I just didn’t want him to grow up like his father.”  She said she had a hard time telling Styers what she wanted him to do, but she eventually got up the nerve to ask Styers to kill her son.

Debbie did not have a criminal past and she denies she had any involvement in Christopher’s murder. She claims she doesn’t know why Styers would kill her son.  Milke took the stand in her own defense.  In a nervous, monotone delivery she recounted the events of the day Christopher disappeared. She denied ever admitting to a conspiracy to kill her son, claiming she was confused when Saldate asked if her interview could be taped and refuted the contents of his reports.

Debbie was found guilty of orchestrating a plot to kill her son Christopher.  The jury reached a verdict after one day of deliberations.  Three months after the conviction, Debra Milke was sentenced to death for her crime and she remains on death row.  Milke is seeking an appeal based on Saldate’s handling of the confession and judicial bias.

Marilyn Lemak killed her children to lash out at her husband. She gave her children an afternoon snack, laced with drugs and then suffocated Nicholas, Emily and Thomas. She slit her wrists and prepared to die. 

Some mothers seek attention through their children, as is the case of Kathy Bush. Who was convicted of keeping her daughter, Jennifer, sick for over eight years. Jennifer Bush suffered through numerous surgeries and procedures, which prosecutors contend were unnecessary.  Jennifer’s medical expenses overwhelmed the family and a media campaign raised money for her care. Jennifer became a celebrity in the community and Kathy basked in the glow of the spotlight as the caring, doting mother. 

Medical personnel saw things differently, and began to collect evidence of Kathy tampering with Jennifer’s IV’s and feeding tubes.  The Bush family sued the hospital and the investigation was closed with no further action taken.  Jennifer continued to suffer through numerous surgeries, including removal of her gall bladder, appendices and part of her intestine. By her seventh birthday she had been hospitalized over 150 times. 

In April 1995, a nurse at Memorial Hospital contacted Child Abuse Hotline alleging that Kathy was tampering with Jennifer’s IV. When the investigation began, Jennifer was in critical condition and her life was hanging in the balance and immediate intervention was required.  Experts believed Kathy Bush suffered from Munchenhausen’s by Proxy “a mental disorder that impels people to feign or induce illness in a twisted bid for attention. In Munchausen by proxy, parents may injure their children–smothering them with pillows, injecting them with poisons, mixing blood in their urine–in order to draw praise for their dedicated nursing of their offspring.” (2)

Kathy was arrested for child abuse and Jennifer was removed from the family.  Jennifer’s immediate improvement when she was placed with a foster family seemed to prove the state’s case.  Prosecutors argued that Kathy thrived on her daughter’s illness, receiving attention from medical personnel, becoming euphoric when Jennifer was at her worse, and the craved public attention.

1) Fernandez, Elizabeth, “An unfathomable crime — parents who slay their kids” San Francisco Chronicle, February 23, 2002, November 15, 2007.

2) Toufexis, Anastasia, “WHY JENNIFER GOT SICK” Time.com, Monday, Apr. 29, 1996, November 15, 2007.