I'm new to posting in this thread, and frankly hadn't heard of this until just today. I read most pages here though. Several things stick out to me, and they may have already been answered and I missed it...
1. I'm not sure how there is a discrepancy as to whether or not she had been taking her medication if she had daily appointments to manage her illness, and two adults living with her (common law dh and her father, I believe). Though I see it as a fairly moot point, given that a schizophrenic person could still have a psychotic episode while on medication. I just think it's weird that it was a point of confusion at all; this is a serious illness, with heavy meds, and lots of monitoring. Albeit if she had stopped taking them, I feel that she is at least partially culpable in whatever happened/is happening to her children, as she made a conscious choice to stop.
2. A question about paranoid schizophrenia in general: I hear about "psychotic episodes", and that she may have well had one/is currently having one, which is why she won't help find the kids/doesn't know/etc. How long do episodes generally last? I have always thought that there were at least brief periods of relative lucidity in between episodes, or else they wouldn't be "episodes". Right? Hers has got to end at some point and when it does, wouldn't she answer questions? At least say she doesn't remember or something? I'm not getting the vibe from statements being made that this is the case. I feel like everything we've heard says that she is being evasive.
3. This is probably more of an opinion or something, but how in the heck did she get those kids alone? Her husband says she wasn't supposed to have them alone, she wasn't supposed to drive at all (no license), and when they did give her a car and her son to go out for pizza, she came back without the kid and three hours later! Even if she had some great story like "oh we ran into so and so, and he wanted to stay with them, so I thought that would be great! They were so glad to see him!", that would still be really, really suspect and concerning, given her illness... So then they later gave her the car again and her daughter, alone again? My kid hadn't spent the night away from me even at grandparents' houses by age 2. Who was this random person that she claimed took the son when she came back from pizza, that no one would be concerned or at least check up on them? Wouldn't he have needed clothes, a special toy, etc? Why did no one check up on this stuff?? Are grandparents complicit in hiding the kids for some reason? Or were they in denial on the severity of her illness? IMO it's either/or...
