A two year old child was found in a nearly empty apartment; bare feet bleeding from several small lacerations sustained while walking through broken glass.
‘Home’ had no beds, no furniture to sit on, only crates, and a blanket thrown on the floor on which to sleep.
‘Home’ had no beds, no furniture to sit on, only crates, and a blanket thrown on the floor on which to sleep.
There was NO running water and no food in the house: not in the cabinets, which were barely attached to the walls, nor in the refrigerator.
The only thing close to being edible was a tin of herbs, probably left over from the last tenants attempt to add some spice to a bleak and marginal life; completely redefining what a culinary ‘reduction’ must mean in this kitchen.
The only thing close to being edible was a tin of herbs, probably left over from the last tenants attempt to add some spice to a bleak and marginal life; completely redefining what a culinary ‘reduction’ must mean in this kitchen.
How much more 'reduced' can you get?
A physical exam was the easy part.
He was quickly cleared for placement in a foster home.
The reason MOCD and police had been called to the home in the first place, however,was to search for a baby’s body.
Mom, a paranoid schizophrenic, had been cleared by a mental health agency as being ‘fit’ to live on her own. Then an unplanned pregnancy intervened and she had gone off her meds.
When she called her therapist yesterday to check in, the therapist asked about the pregnancy and how Mom was feeling. Mom replied “things didn’t work out”; going on to say she delivered a baby at home 5 days ago after waiting for EMS for over 6 hours.
The baby “wasn’t doing so well”, so Mom put it in the bathroom trash can.
A physical exam was the easy part.
He was quickly cleared for placement in a foster home.
The reason MOCD and police had been called to the home in the first place, however,was to search for a baby’s body.
Mom, a paranoid schizophrenic, had been cleared by a mental health agency as being ‘fit’ to live on her own. Then an unplanned pregnancy intervened and she had gone off her meds.
When she called her therapist yesterday to check in, the therapist asked about the pregnancy and how Mom was feeling. Mom replied “things didn’t work out”; going on to say she delivered a baby at home 5 days ago after waiting for EMS for over 6 hours.
The baby “wasn’t doing so well”, so Mom put it in the bathroom trash can.
Later that night, when she was feeling better, she emptied the trash can and put 'it' in the dumpster.
(Reality checks: police DID recover bloody sheets from the scene with DNA on it - not moms but sharing her gene pool, suggestive of a baby/birth; EMS was never called to the scene at any time; police have medical confirmation of a pregnancy.)
The questions now facing law enforcement are worthy of Jack McCoy and an episode of the Law and Order franchise.
Can you charge someone with murder if you can’t find a body?
And, how crazy is crazy enough to excuse someone who can give a full account of what they did?
The police are still looking for the body and, while law enforcement goes searching in trash fills all the time on Nancy Grace looking for missing and presumed dead children, how many limited economic resources should we, as a society, devote to finding a pre-term baby when the reality is that, had Mom gone a few blocks away to a clinic, she could have aborted a baby the same gestational age and it would have been disposed of for her?
Glad I don’t have to formulate the answers to all the questions I’m faced with on a daily basis.
I just have to deal with the emotional turmoil and sadness that they raise.
Trust me, that’s enough.
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