The Many Innocent Victims of Incest

by Dr. Michelle Golland

Susan Smith placed her young children in a car and let it roll into a lake in 1994. She hid the facts, blamed someone else and was later found guilty and is currently serving a prison sentence. Casey Anthony is currently on trial for the disappearance and subsequent death of her two -year old daughter Caylee. Immediately after her daughter’s disappearance, Casey hid the facts and blamed someone else. Both women claim to have been incested by their fathers for several years of their childhoods and into their adulthoods, and it is this connection and the similarities of their alleged crimes that I want to think about.

Incestuous relationships create a confusing and traumatic situation with the child in all cases. The bond with the incestuous parent becomes confused between the normal attachment that a child feels for a parent as caregiver and the additional sexual attachment. There is no such thing as mutually consensual incest and there is no outcome to such situations other than trauma.

One of the major psychological findings about children involved in incestuous relationships with their parents is what’s called an insecure attachment style. Okay, quick primer on attachment. Attachment is the word we use to describe the bond between parent and child in childhood, which later translates to how well the individual is able to bond in adult relationships. The Attachment Bond Theory was created by an English Psychiatrist named John Bowlby and an American Psychologist named Mary Ainsworth in the 1960’s.

Ideally, a child will be securely attached and able to create meaningful relationships and feel empathy for others as they mature. Secure attachment is the result of parenting that is child focused with an awareness of the child’s emotional world. Everything else falls under a large umbrella called insecure attachment and includes avoidant, ambivalent, disorganized and reactive attachment styles. Avoidant attachment is the result of unavailable or rejecting parents and leads to adults who are avoidant of intimate relationships, rigid and critical. Ambivalent attachment occurs when parenting is inconsistent and even sometimes intrusive. Ambivalently attached children grow up to be anxious and insecure adults who can be controlling, blaming, and erratic. Disorganized attachment is the result of parents who ignore their children and even can behave in frightening or traumatizing ways. Children raised this way can become chaotic, insensitive abusive adults, who in spite of their behavior, desperately crave security. Finally, reactive attachment is the result of extremely unattached or malfunctional parenting and often results in adults who are incapable of forming relationships. Okay, primer done.

So, as I mentioned, ideally we raise our children to be securely attached individuals who will later pursue and nurture healthy adult relationships. Where incest is involved, as alleged in the Casey Anthony case, there is no chance for secure attachment. The very act of molestation discounts awareness of the child’s emotional needs. As we have seen in the case of Susan Smith and other women who have committed similar crimes, the sad reality of attachment dysfunction is that it trickles down to the person’s own relationship with her children, or in other words, the inability to attach includes the inability to attach to biological offspring. 

In both the Casey Anthony and the Susan Smith cases the immediate reaction of the women seemed to be detachment and dissociation from the reality of the loss of their child. They seemed emotionless when talking about their missing children and appeared to be cold and callous. Additionally they resorted to primary defenses of blaming others and perhaps hoping that they could get away with, well literally murder, if they simply pretended the crime didn’t happen. It’s a very childlike way of reacting, like deflecting responsibility for a broken lamp. This immaturity can also be the result of insecure attachment as their primary focus in growing up might have been survival in a chaotic home, a home that allowed incest for example, instead of being nurtured through maturity in a healthy way.

Is insecure attachment an excuse for killing your children? No. emphatically, no. However, knowing that there is an explanation that can serve to clarify why such a nightmare can and does happen, can help us to feel like the world is a bit more organized, and can remind us as parents how important it is to be good and attentive caregivers. Our children require us to see them, to acknowledge and respond to their emotional worlds in nurturing ways, to hold reasonable and steady boundaries within which they will push and eventually become their own person. Unfortunately, it is way to easy to create children and much, much more difficult to create highly functioning people.

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How Could You, Theresa Riggi?

By Diane Fanning

Sometimes mothers in the throes of a serious psychotic episode take the lives of their own children. It's a horrifying act, but if the woman was disconnected from reality, it is easier to understand. But when a mother kills her children for her own gain, personal convenience or as an act of retribution against the children's father, the act baffles me to the point that it seems impossible. How could any woman do that?

As a mother, it seems far more natural to lay down my own life for the sake of a child I carried inside of my body all those months than it is to ever intentionally do anything to harm my child. 

I recoiled from 23-year-old Susan Smith, who killed her two young boys because she wanted to hold on to a man. 

I was repulsed by 21-year-old Casey Anthony, who murdered her little girl, not quite three years old, because, it seems, little Caylee was cramping her style.

We now add to that pantheon of monstrous mothers a 46-year-old woman of privilege: Theresa Riggi.  She, it seems, want to get back at her estranged husband.

Born Theresa Butimore in Bakersfield, California, she married Pasquale Riggi, a petroleum engineer and a native of Colorado, on September 30, 1989.  In the nineties, Pasquale's job with Royal Dutch Shell brought them to the Netherlands.  In 1997, the couple moved to Aberdeenshire in Scotland where, eight years ago, they had a pair of twins, Augustino and Gianluca, followed by a daughter, Cecilia, three years later.

Theresa, an accomplished violinist, home-schooled the children, but when Pasquale filed for divorce and custody of the children, he was adamant that they attend a real school. Theresa didn't want her children seeing their father. But an investigation during the divorce found that contact should be permitted, and the court saw no problems with the children living with their father. The divorce and battle for custody was bitter. 

On July 4, Theresa ran off with the children. Pasquale reported them missing. Judge Lord Malcolm issued a court order forbidding the removal of the children from the country. 

 

Theresa and her children were located in a flat in Edinburgh. She ran off with the children once again. Judge Lady Clark issued a warrant allowing a search for Theresa, and instructed social workers to take charge of the children and obtain child protection orders if necessary.

Theresa was losing custody of her children. But no one was suggesting she should not see them at all.  Still, that was unacceptable to her. She wanted to win this battle and since she had not, she wanted to hurt her ex-husband.

One by one, she slit her children's throats. 

Eight-year old Augustin--dead.

Eight-year old Gianluca--dead. 

Five-year-old Cecilia--dead.

 

Proving, too late, that she should not be trusted with the care of those children.

This monstrous mother then caused a gas explosion in the home to cover up her wrong-doing. She leaped out a window, screaming: "My children!  My children!" She hit the ground, 40 feet below. She survived and has now been charged with murder.

Theresa's family is distraught. They believe that Theresa could not bear losing her children. Still they did not foresee and cannot comprehend her actions.

To me,  Theresa's thought process seems transparent: if she couldn't have full-time custody of her children, then nobody would. If she could not have all of her children, all of the time, she would not accept having her children some of the time.  And because she lost the battle, she wanted to get even with her estranged spouse -- and the lives of three innocent children were far less important to her than her desire to fulfill that goal.

I do not understand how any mother could make that decision. I don't know how any mother could place her petty desires above her children's lives. 

How could you, Theresa Riggi? How could you?

When the Casey Anthony trial begins next year, you'll find daily updates of the case on Diane Fanning's blog, Writing is a Crime.

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Pat Brown & Diane Fanning on E!'S 'Fatal Beauty: 15 Most Notorious Women'

Women in Crime Ink's own Pat Brown and Diane Fanning appear on E!'s Countdown: Fatal Beauty: 15 Most Notorious Women on Sunday, May 31 at 9 pm Eastern / 8 pm Central.

No, Pat and Diane didn't make E!'s list of notorious women—they appear on the show talking about some of those who did.

It's a countdown of ordinary women whose notorious crimes have made them pseudo-celebrities. E! investigates the remarkable and tumultuous lives of women who made headlines around the globe, some by committing unthinkable crimes & acts of violence and others whose decisions left us wondering why.

Over the course of two hours it reveals their shocking stories and explores the desperate circumstances that drove them to such extremes. Plus, it’ll look at the ways these sad and horrific events could have been prevented. The show provides a new perspective and keen insight into who these women really are with the help of medical experts, psychologists, law enforcement, and even the very women at the center of these high-profile cases.

Among the fifteen notorious women included in the countdown are these familiar names: Casey Anthony (above right), Karla Homolka, Aileen Wournos, Susan Smith, Carolyn Warmus, Mary Winkler and Karla Faye Tucker left)

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What Would You Think?

by Diane Fanning

If someone you loved, or even someone you knew, were accused of a crime would your first response be to seek refuge in denial? I’ve always believed that I’d be able to look truth in the eye and accept it, no matter how distasteful or horrendous. I did, at least, until a recent event occurred just blocks from my home.

For years, we’ve all watched the neighbors and friends of serial killers, mass murderers, pedophiles and others express shock when crimes are disclosed so close to their doorsteps. How many times have we heard: “He was a nice guy, a quiet guy, a good neighbor?” How many red flags sprouted out of his front lawn while no one took note?

Even more amazing to anyone looking at a crime from an objective distance are the family members that never noticed. The estranged husband of Susan Smith stood beside her as she sobbed coast to coast. He believed in her innocence. We, the public, believed in her innocence.

The wife of BTK Dennis Rader claimed cluelessness about her husband’s crime. (below: decades old snapshot of the Rader family)

Many scoffed at her ignorance—others refused to believe she knew nothing. How could she climb into bed with him night after night and not know about his secret life?

Kathleen Peterson had no idea that her husband Michael led a double life—outwardly heterosexual and monogamous but engaging in sex with men at the Y, trolling the Internet for homosexual pornography and even contacting male escorts on-line. Kathleen didn’t know until the last night of her life. Her murder kept Michael’s secret for a while—but not for long.

And yet, when the evidence of his responsibility for this homicide came cascading around him, family members stood by his side refusing to accept his culpability—seeing him as persecuted instead of prosecuted. No surprise that his biological sons since questioned about involvement in the cover-up made public displays of denial in their best interest.

But what of Martha and Margaret? Michael was guardian of those two girls from the time they were very small. They stuck with him through the trial and through his appeals. He was convicted of murdering the mother figure in their lives but he was also suspected of responsibility for the similar death of Martha and Margaret’s biological mother, Liz Ratliffe, sixteen years earlier. And yet, they found their refuge in denial—in the place where facts are irrelevant and emotion trumps evidence.

The proclivity for denial doesn’t end with murder. Many times, stalwart family members hearing accusations of serial rape have stood up denying the guilt of a son, brother, husband or father—even when confronted with the panties of victims stuffed in the corner of his dresser drawer. Learning of charges of pedophilia, some still deny even after learning that their loved one’s computer was filled with thousands of indecent images of children.

So how would you react? How would I? I’d like to think that because of my background, I could be objective and stand always in defiance of the siren call of denial. And then I read the headline about someone I knew—someone I respected—and I stumbled.

The high school Criminal Justice teacher, a man in his sixties, retired from law enforcement, was accused of sexual impropriety with a teenage girl in one of his classes. My denial rose up like floodwaters, bearing indignation on its crest.

I was certain that the student was making it up in typical adolescent drama queen fashion. She didn’t get the grade she wanted or she felt humiliated in class, or she couldn’t get the letter of recommendation she wanted. I knew it had to be her fault, her problem, her vindictiveness. I refused to accept the possibility that this man I knew was at fault in any way.

I remained there for two days, certain of his innocence. Then the newspapers told the story of his text messages to the girl. He expressed his infatuation with her in vivid words. He wanted to leave his wife to be with her. It was like cold water in my face.

My first thoughts were amazement at the stupidity of this man. Former law enforcement and a criminal justice teacher and yet he leaves a text message trail? After assimilating those facts, I was overcome with outrage. Outrage at the teacher for betraying the trust placed in him by the students, the school, the parents—by society itself.

And outrage at myself for my willingness to believe the worst about the girl who had the courage to stand up to his behavior, face the possibility of embarrassment in her community and the ostracizing by her classmates—the girl who was willing to do the right thing.

Yes, my denial only lasted two days but it was a source of inner shame. I suppose I should be more tolerant in my judgment of myself. After all, denial is a natural, protective reaction to stress. I don’t think I can manage to cut myself that much slack but I do know I can do it for others.

After all, perpetrators on all levels strive for stealth—some perform exquisitely, others are bumbling idiots. Who am I to judge those who are taken in by these manipulators?

When I see a parent submerged in a deep well of denial, I’ll be empathetic of their unenviable situation. When I see a spouse certain of their loved one’s innocence, I won’t automatically suspect their involvement in the other’s crime or its cover-up. When I see a mother prostrate from the burden of a child’s guilt, cobbling together a flawed alibi to protect the babe she bore, I will understand.

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Is Casey Anthony Another Susan Smith?

by Lucy Puryear, M.D.

I am often asked by the media to comment on cases where mothers have harmed or killed their children. I frequently am called by attorneys asking for help in their cases where a mother has killed her child.

Because of my work in the Andrea Yates case it is hoped that I may be able to offer some psychiatric defense for other defendants. If the alleged murderer was suffering from psychosis then a verdict of Not Guilty by reason of insanity may be successful. Many attorneys wrongfully assume (or hope against hope) that if the mother they represent has killed her child then she must be "crazy." I am sure she is "crazy" in some form, but not always in a way that mitigates her responsibility for the crime.

It is impossible for me to forget the case of Susan Smith. It was October of 1994, and I was a second-year resident in psychiatry at Ben Taub Hospital in Houston. I was learning how to diagnose psychiatric illness and treat psychiatric emergencies. We were also being trained in detecting whether someone was fabricating or exaggerating their illness for some secondary gain. It was not at all unusual to interview persons who were trying to get prescription medications from naive young doctors, or who wanted to be admitted to the hospital for a warm bed and three free meals.

But as I watched Susan Smith on television tearful and begging for the lives of her children, I felt tremendous sorrow and grief for her. I could only imagine how devastating it would be if I had been accosted and my children kidnapped. Her grief felt in sharp contrast to the drug addict trying to convince me they were terribly anxious and needed me to prescribe Valium. I knew one women was in real pain, and the other just trying to manipulate me.

The nation and I were shocked to learn that while Susan Smith sobbed, her children were strapped in to their car seats, at the bottom of a lake. The person responsible for their deaths? Their mother.

In the Casey Anthony case we have a mother who allegedly killed her child, stored her daughter's body in the trunk of the car, and then began to party. Only when questioned did she report that her daughter had been missing for some time.

Unlike Susan Smith, we never saw her on television begging for her child's return. We did see her at the disco and at Target, acting as if life couldn't be better. Even if she didn't murder her cute-as-a-button daughter, why is she acting so blase about the fact that her daughter is missing? Unexplainable.

What are the possible reasons a mother could kill her child? From a psychiatric point of view, I think there's something seriously wrong with someone who murders her own child. It doesn't mean I think they shouldn't be punished, but I also think that a diagnosis of some type can be made. Let's start with the "easier to make the connection" psychiatric disorders:

1. Psychosis: A person hears voices telling them to harm their child or has a delusion that makes them believe their child needs to be saved from evil or their child is evil and the world needs to be saved. This was true in the Andrea Yates case; she believed her children were being taken over by Satan, and in order to save them from hell she had to send them to heaven while they were still innocent enough for God to take them. This can happen to women who become psychotic for the first time after delivery, or in patients who have previous diagnoses of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. This can be prevented with appropriate psychiatric intervention and medication. Mothers can be treated and children do not have to die.

2. Depression: A mother can become so severely depressed that she wants to kill herself but feels that her children would suffer without a mother. She kills the children before she attempts to kill herself. Sometimes she is unsuccessful at taking her own life and must face the emotional and legal consequences of her choice. This can happen in severe postpartum depression or in cases where a mother is depressed due to financial or marital stresses. She believes she is protecting her children from being left behind to suffer. Depression can also be identified and treated and lives saved.

3. Borderline Personality Disorder: This is a complicated diagnosis and varies in severity from individual to individual. The characteristics of this diagnosis are mood lability with terrible feelings of depression, loneliness, emptiness, and despair. This mood symptoms are often accompanied by substance abuse, risk-taking behavior, and suicidal thoughts with less serious attempts. These attempts are often seen as cries for help. Persons with BPD form intense chaotic relationships which are often passionately good early on and then become disappointing and passionately bad later on. This disorder usually occurs in people who have histories of childhood abuse, abandonment, parents with disorder, or other chaotic, "not safe," inconsistent attachments to caretakers. Borderline Personality Disorder is hard to treat. The treatment consists of long-term psychotherapy and medication.

Although I have not personally interviewed Susan Smith, this is most likely her diagnosis. She was raised by a violent alcoholic father who later committed suicide when her mother divorced him. Her mother remarried a man who molested Susan for many years without reprisal. Susan began to engage in relationships with married men while she was in high school and was in the middle of a divorce and rejected by her lover when she released the parking brake in her car and watched her children drown. She knew what she was doing was wrong, but at that moment was feeling such despair and hopelessness that it felt like a way to make life less complicated. She also believed that without her two children her boyfriend might take her back. She was terrified to be alone without a man in her life to allow her to feel complete.

4. Narcissitic Personality Disorder: This is an unfortunately common personality disorder that often does not cause the person who has it much discomfort. Persons with this type of character have little regard for needs or feelings of others, but use others to meet their own needs and desires. Often those with this type of disorder are successful in their business or careers and can appear outgoing and charismatic, but they draw people to them for their own personal gain. If a loved one or colleague stops being useful to them then they can be easily disposed of without much pain. If there are problems in their lives, they are blamed on the inadequacies of others. Narcissistic individuals have a hard time taking personal responsibility. The causes for this disorder are not entirely clear, but often there is a childhood history of being highly adulated by parents, not made to take responsibility for mistakes with parents often helping to cover-up or fix problems, and having things given without having to learn the value of hard work and disappointment.

I don't know Casey Anthony's history, but her behavior certainly fits one who has little regard for others, is primarily interested in her own welfare and happiness, and will go to great lengths to escape consequences or punishment. Susan Smith confessed to what she had done and felt remorse. Casey Anthony continues to lie and deceive.

5. Antisocial Personality Disorder: These are the people who fill our jails. People without conscience, morality, or the ability to live within societal norms. I can give too many examples of this. . . . Mothers who drown their kids to get back at cheating boyfriends . . . Mothers who leave their kids alone to go hang out at the crack house . . . Mothers who abuse and torture their children for . . . enjoyment. At the moment there is no treatment for this disorder. Therapy as an adult doesn't work. Early childhood intervention is most likely the key. There has been one study published that links those in jail to having had mothers who had postpartum depression. By the time someone reaches jail it is mostly too late.

Mothers will continue to kill their children. Jail may most certainly be appropriate for some individuals, but it is not a deterrent to other mothers. Fortunately there are some causes of maternal filicide that are very treatable with proper screening, identification, and treatment.

The Mother's Act in Congress failed but will be brought out again for another vote. This law would require more money be earmarked for the recognition of, treatment for, and research of postpartum psychiatric disorders. (If only it been part of the "pork" in the bailout, like the Parity bill which mandates insurance companies pay equally for psychiatric illnesses.)

Early childhood intervention to prevent child abuse, neglect, ensure quality education and day care, and support for single mothers could go a long way towards decreasing the incidence of antisocial personality disorders. Susan Smith could have benefited from intensive therapy and intervention by someone to stop the abuse by her stepfather. We have the means and the knowledge to stop some of these heinous crimes.

Casey Anthony? There was a book written in 1954 called The Bad Seed. A good read.

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