“The scenario is probably one of them Medea Syndrome taken to the extreme: a woman known to have mental problems, who lost custody of her child and wants revenge on her ex-partner by killing his son. I am surprised at the gross underestimation on the part of the social services who are aware of this situation.” This is a criminologist’s analysis. Roberta Bruzzone than on the phone with Messenger of God analyzes the case of the 55 year old woman who this morning killed her 9 year old son by slitting his throat at his home in Muggia (Trieste). The little boy was entrusted to his father but did not return last night at 9pm after visiting his mother. This morning firefighters found him dead with a stab wound to his throat, while his mother was in shock.
Bruzzone, this bloody method of murder is very striking. How do you explain it?
“Usually in the case of mothers who kill their children, the bloodier the method, the greater the vengeful motive behind the action. A psychotic mother, for example, with one of them paranoid psychosis coming from religion and who believes he will save his son by killing him, usually chooses a less bloody method like drowning or suffocation with soft media. When the one who acts is actually a woman motivated by a desire for revenge, that is, she believes she has been abused because the child was taken from her, an act that is far more cruel.”
So in this case what was going through this woman’s mind?
“It turned out there was a mental problem and entrusting the child to his father clearly exposed him to his father’s incompetence, which he did not tolerate.
At that moment, the desire for revenge appeared in her mind: if she couldn’t have a baby, she shouldn’t have anyone anymore. This is probably the scenario that gradually developed in his mind.”
The family was followed by social services, but it was not enough to protect the young child. What doesn’t work?
“I got goosebumps because the situation was already being followed by social services, so it was clear there was a critical problem. The child was entrusted to his father, a sign that the mother had quite serious mental problems because for children of that age the decision was taken when the mother’s parenting was really compromised. What is not understood is why this child did not have the opportunity to see his mother safely, considering there was an important, critical problem.”
Neighbors and acquaintances said the situation was not that serious. Was that woman pretending to hide her intentions?
“The fact that it didn’t seem very serious doesn’t mean it wasn’t serious. Indeed, such a brutal escalation tells us that this person may have been capable of concealing the gravity of one’s goalsthe situation is dangerous. In fact, if there are parents who have mental problems of this magnitude, they are usually prevented from having direct contact with minors because there are no other reference figures.
There have been cases of mothers killing their children, but warnings are often ignored. Maybe because this kind of crime seems unthinkable to us?
“The mother figure is seen, even in gender stereotypes, as someone who is incapable of harming her offspring, and is even ready to make sacrifices and sacrifice herself to ensure their sustenance and nutrition. We tend to think of motherhood or fatherhood as a kind of handbrake. And these stereotypes are sometimes the cause of underestimating the seriousness of a case. In a mind that is distorted, dysfunctional, or burdened by mental disorders, suffering can increase and acts of violence can befall anyone, including children.”
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