It is generally accepted in society that a woman should be not just a good mother, but an ideal one. Because she has a "maternal instinct." But sometimes this instinct does not work, and then the mother turns into a monster.
Andrea Yates, the innocent killer of five natural children
In 1989, Andrea Kennedy met Russell Yates, and 5 years later the couple got married. Andrea and Russell immediately decided that their family should have many children. In the first year after the wedding, the firstborn was born - Noah, followed by John in 1995, and in 1997 the third son, Paul, was born. At the same time, after the birth of Noah, Andrea began postpartum depression. The young mother was prescribed a sedative. At that time, such a state was considered completely normal for young mothers, and no one saw anything dangerous in this case, so Andrea gave birth to three more children. After the birth of Luke (1999), the woman's depression worsened, and she was prescribed antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs. But they did not help, and Andrea tried to commit suicide. The doctors managed to save the woman, and, as it seemed, to defeat her illness. After the course of treatment, Andrea's mental state did not cause any fears: she felt great and a year after the suicide attempt, in 2000, she gave birth to her only daughter, Mary. And a year later, Andrea's father died, and this sad event was a real blow for the woman. The disease has returned.
Another episode of depression was so severe that Russell, Andrea's husband, did not believe that his wife would be able to get out. Unfortunately, he was right. On June 20, 2001, after seeing Russell to work, Andrea took a full bath of water and drowned her children in it, one by one. She wrapped the bodies of the children in a towel and laid them on the bed. Andrea killed Luke, John, Paul and Mary. The last victim was seven-year-old Noah, who managed to understand what was happening and tried to escape from his mother. After that, Andrea called the police, and then her husband.
Society demanded the harshest punishment for the infanticide, but Andrea's husband insisted that the disease was to blame. In 2002, the woman was convicted of gross murder and sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 40 years, but the sentence was later overturned on appeal. Andrea was found not guilty due to insanity and transferred to a psychiatric clinic.
After this incident, young mothers in the United States began to take a sanity test.
Teresa Knorr, pimp and killer
In 1961, fifteen-year-old Teresa Cross was orphaned: her mother died of a heart attack, and Teresa became depressed. Just a year later, the girl rushed to get married - it was probably too hard for her to be alone. In 1963, young Teresa and her husband Cliff Sanders had a son, Howard Clyde. But family life did not work out: for an unknown reason, Teresa shot her husband a year after the birth of the child. At the trial, she presented the incident as self-defense and was fully acquitted. And a year later, Teresa remarried to Robert Knorr and gave birth to five children: Sheila (1965), Susan (1966), William (1967), Robert (1967) and Teresa Mary, who was called "Terry" in the family (1970). After the birth of their children, Teresa divorced Robert.
Subsequently, Terry said that her mother was an extremely cruel person: she hated her daughters and mocked them, jealous of their youth and beauty. Terri said that her mother regularly punished her and Susan, extinguished cigarettes on their bodies and flogged them for no reason. In 1983, Teresa tried to shoot Susan, but the girl survived - the bullet stuck in her chest. Knorr did not call her daughter a doctor, and a year later she tried to remove the bullet from her daughter's body. Due to the fact that the instruments were not sterile, Susan developed jaundice and soon began to show signs of mental illness. Teresa Knorr gathered the children and announced to them that Susan was possessed by Satan and the only way to get rid of the danger was to burn her alive. Knorr forced her sons to take Susan into the mountains and do it.
Then it was the turn of the eldest daughter - Sheila. Her mother forced her into prostitution, and in 1985 suddenly announced that Sheila had contracted a "bad disease" from a client and infected her mother through the toilet seat. As punishment, Teresa locked Sheila in a room and never released her again. A few weeks later, the girl starved to death.
Knorr and her sons were arrested on October 11, 1993. Terri saw on TV the series America Wanted, which was about crimes and the people who committed them. The girl called the police and told about everything that happened in their family.
Knorr was charged with torture killings. At first, Teresa denied her guilt, but after learning that her sons were ready to testify against her, she confessed. On October 17, 1995, Teresa Knorr was sentenced to two life sentences.
Svetlana Okley, mother heroine, murderer and kidnapper
The entire Miners' district was proud of the mother-heroine from the city of Krasnodon, Luhansk region. Svetlana and her husband Alexander raised six daughters and one son, while all the children in this large family were talented and gifted: the children studied well and regularly became laureates of various regional and city competitions. Alexander worked as a miner, Svetlana wrote children's fairy tales, songs and created the Okley children's family ensemble, which took part in all major events in the Krasnodon region. The couple's eldest daughter was already 22 years old, but she maintained a close relationship with her parents. Perfect family. In 2007, by a special decree of President Viktor Yushchenko, Svetlana Okley was awarded the title "Mother Heroine".
In 2010, the exemplary family decided to adopt Ilya, a five-year-old inmate of the orphanage. But it turned out that Ilya has two sisters - four-year-old Liza and two-year-old Katya. The law prohibits separating brothers and sisters, so Svetlana Okley decided to become a mother to all three. And 2 years later, in 2012, Svetlana gave birth to her 11th child.
The family continued to live a busy social life: Ilya joined the family ensemble and performed at events, but no one has ever seen his little sisters. Subsequently, it turned out that they did not know anything about them even in the district clinic.
In August 2012, a resident of the village of Semeykino, Krasnodon District, called the police station and said that unknown persons had abducted her three-year-old daughter Kristina Kabakova. The girl was walking in the yard with her six-year-old brother. At some point, unknown people drove up to them: a man, a woman and a girl. They grabbed Christina, threw her into a motorcycle sidecar and drove away in an unknown direction. According to the boy, they made a composite sketch of the kidnappers; the police managed to find the kidnapped girl. Christina was found at the Oakley family's dacha. The girl was hidden under the bed, heaped up with a pile of rags. Svetlana Okley said that this girl is not Christina Kabakova at all, but her adopted daughter Lisa.
To Christina's parents, who soon arrived, Oakley said that allegedly someone else had kidnapped her adopted daughters Katya and Lisa in winter, and therefore she decided to take revenge and kidnap someone else's child. At that moment, the adopted son of the Okley family, Ilya, approached one of the policemen and whispered: "Take me out of here, otherwise they will kill me." The whole body of the boy was covered with bruises and scars. Svetlana Okley, her eldest daughter Yulia and husband Alexander, who was hiding in the attic, were immediately arrested.
The father and daughter confessed. As it turned out, Svetlana kidnapped Kristina Kabakova in order to give her off to one of her adopted daughters. Both Katya and Liza were beaten to death by Svetlana.
According to the eldest daughter of Svetlana Okley Yulia, the children stood in the corner all day. They were forbidden to move, otherwise Svetlana beat them with her hands on the head, legs on the back and all over the body. Katya constantly had a bump on her head from being hit by a cast-iron battery. “Mom also pierced her lower jaw through, and when I was feeding her, food flowed out from the bottom of her chin - there was a hole through her mouth,” said Yulia. Svetlana Okley beat Lisa to death, and then ordered Julia and her husband Alexander to get rid of the body. The father and daughter put Lisa in a bag and took her to their country house, which they began to use as a dacha after the authorities donated an apartment to the family. There they burned the girl's body in an iron vat.
After the murder of Liza, Svetlana calmed down for a while and stopped beating Katya and Ilya. But after 9 months, already in the last stages of pregnancy with her last child, Svetlana killed Katya. The girl's body was buried in the same dacha.
On December 11, 2012, the trial began over the Okley spouses and their daughter Yulia. Julia and Alexander fully admitted their guilt and confirmed that Svetlana tortured and then killed her adopted daughters. The defendant herself denied her guilt: she insisted that the case against her was fabricated. Svetlana Okley's lawyer could not resist and said right in court that his client was a monster.
Svetlana Okley was sentenced to 15 years in prison, her husband Alexander - to 4 years in prison, and the eldest daughter Yulia - to 4 years in prison with a suspension of the sentence for 3 years due to the fact that she was pregnant at the time of the trial.
In March 2013, Svetlana Okley filed an appeal against the court's decision.
The Luhansk Region Court of Appeal found no grounds to change the sentence.
