TX - Shanna, 36, & Diederik Vandewege, 3 mos, slain, Fort Worth, 15 Dec 2016 *GUILTY*

[Moxie Vi]

This is such a strange crime! My first thought was postpartum depression with psychosis and the nanny in NYC that slit the toddlers' throats and then her own (but lived). I could see a mom in the midst of MI doing this to her baby and then herself. I have a harder time seeing her husband do it and an even harder time seeing a stranger do it. After years on this site I've read about seemingly great moms doing some horrific things to their children thanks to postpartum issues. I'm not ruling it out yet. I'm not sold on the theory either.

I can't blame the husband for needing family support after just losing his wife and child. It's likely the police were coming at him pretty hard and after losing so much it's not unreasonable that he would want comfort after initial questioning. Perhaps he couldn't afford staying in a hotel and didn't want to or couldn't stay in the house. Lots of not nefarious reasons to go back home IMO.

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[MzOpinion8d]

I guess this is the norm nowadays, although I don't know why. I'm from a very small
town and our local obits request donations to . IMO - Absurd.

I'd rather have someone help pay my funeral expenses than send flowers. Many people want to help the survivors in some way, and relieving the financial burden is one way to help. Nothing's going to make them feel "better" but at least if some of their expenses are covered it's one less thing to worry about. For a long time obits have included "in lieu of flowers, please send donations to (whatever organization)". It's not really so different.

 

[Cannonball3804]

I found this Go Fund Me Page -- <modsnip>
asking for donations to help with funeral expenses, etc. for SV and DV. Does anyone else find this odd? They have a nice home, SV had a good job, CV has a job so surely they have insurance, right? But now CV or maybe SV's parents are requesting help for funeral and "other" expenses?

Even if they had life insurance, with this brings homicide investigation, the insurance company would likely withhold payment for some period of time. But the mortuary and cemetery are going to expect payment. So the donations would pay those expenses or at least a sizable down payment on them, I would think.

I'd also add that young people don't always have life insurance unless their employer automatically provides it. In our youth we think we will live forever, right?

Also very possible that the baby had no life insurance at all.


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[EntreNous]

I suppose I'm just different about things like that. Like you wouldn't drive off a car lot without insurance, I just always made sure those things were in place, even as a 19 yr. old mom.

 

[Cannonball3804]

I suppose I'm just different about things like that. Like you wouldn't drive off a car lot without insurance, I just always made sure those things were in place, even as a 19 yr. old mom.

But as I said, he could have had his wife and the new baby insured to the hilt and it still wouldn't give him access to the money right now when he needs it. The insurance company isn't going to pay while the case is under investigation and there's even a shred of possibility that the beneficiary did it.

I don't know exactly how funeral homes work their finances. But I'm pretty sure that they're not going to just accept a promise to pay later from a man who isn't cleared of suspicion. Not when the average cost of a funeral is $10,000 or so.


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[R@ngers#1]

Evil people do absurd things. I don't get your logic of how it's MORE absurd for a stranger to do it than the baby's father.


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It's all sick, twisted and absurd. Just statistically speaking family members are killed by family members more than strangers.

 

[Elle*Bee]

Not necessarily (for the US)...I was thinking the 3 months was probably nearing the end of her leave, and that she was likely taking it through Christmas, at least. Three months is fairly par for the course, I think (though depending on where you work, maybe).

I'm way behind in reading and still catching up, so forgive me if this has already been addressed. Under Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), businesses that employ a certain number of employees (not sure the minimum today - it was 35 employees in 1995), must provide employees up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave so she could have been nearing the end of FMLA leave. (Some employers do provide paid or reduced pay leave.)

 

[Cannonball3804]

It's all sick, twisted and absurd. Just statistically speaking family members are killed by family members more than strangers.

That is true, I agree. But the circumstances of this case are an outlier to begin with (new mom and three month old with throats slit in bed). So I'm not sure how much overall statistics help us here. And generally when a woman is killed by someone she knows, or a hitman hired by someone she knows, it's a solitary killing. The presence of the infant throws a wrinkle into it.

Amanda Blackburn was killed by a stranger but he left her 16-month-old unharmed upstairs. Allen Blackthorne had a hit man kill his ex but the twins she had with her new husband were left unharmed by her side.

I also wonder if the timing matters here. Burglaries increase during Christmas season. I could see this case tracking with the Blackburn case which occurred in November. Perhaps a burglar was casing the street, saw the husband leave for work, and thought the house would be unoccupied.

It would be interesting to know if they were a one-car family? Maybe it appeared to the perp that the house was empty because the one visible car had just left, and no lights on in the house. If it occurred this way, the time of death would be very close to when CV left for work.


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[Inthedetails]

Two things stands out: the throat cutting and the baby.

That is an unusual way to kill someone, imo. I would guess it takes either a very determined mind to cut someone's throat, or experience.

Someone with experience - like a medical person or a hunter - would know exactly where to cut, I would guess. Others who wanted to murder might not even consider cutting someone's throat as a method.

The victims were in bed, and one little victim was completely defenseless and couldn't fight an attack - so why not use a pillow to smother instead of cutting throat? Or stab if you have a knife?

Do we have any stats on throat cutting murders and murderers?

IMO, the murdering of an infant was personal against that particular infant. Someone didn't want this particular infant to live, imo.

"Usual suspect" in this type of case comes to mind as well as someone jealous. IMO, whoever did this has experience with a knife. (Or someone with mental illness, such as hearing voices to use a knife.)

The knife is key. The baby is key.

Only my opinion, subject to change as we learn more about the case.

So sad. My heart goes out to the extended family members who are living in shock now.

 

[yllek]

I wish we knew what type of cutting instrument was used and whether it was something that belonged to the Vandewege household. Hopefully, LE knows.

 

[Elle*Bee]

I'm sorry - I would never lawyer up if my baby had his throat slashed. I would rather go to
prison. Nothing matters more than my child. I know - everyone is going to disagree w/ me -
but that is how I feel. I asked hubby - he said basically the same thing, he would never
lawyer up - we don't care if LE thinks what they think. I guess, again, that's the norm again,
hire a lawyer - don't cooperate w/ LE. Really?

I'm not arguing with you. On a logical level, I would want to be as cooperative as possible so the case could be solved quickly. However, suppose (hypothetically) I had been involved in other misdeeds - unrelated to the murder - but those misdeeds would through a lot of suspicion my way? I might consider retaining legal counsel to navigate that out of fear that LE* might stop looking elsewhere and focus all of their attention on me. In this hypothetical case, I might be arrested, tried and convicted while the murderer of my spouse and child goes free. It wouldn't be the first conviction based on circumstantial evidence, I suppose. (*Disclaimer: As a rule, I'm very LE-friendly until evidence sways my opinion.) Again, this is hypothetical and my own opinion.

 

[EntreNous]

Two things stands out: the throat cutting and the baby.

That is an unusual way to kill someone, imo. I would guess it takes either a very determined mind to cut someone's throat, or experience.

Someone with experience - like a medical person or a hunter - would know exactly where to cut, I would guess. Others who wanted to murder might not even consider cutting someone's throat as a method.

The victims were in bed, and one little victim was completely defenseless and couldn't fight an attack - so why not use a pillow to smother instead of cutting throat? Or stab if you have a knife?

Do we have any stats on throat cutting murders and murderers?

IMO, the murdering of an infant was personal against that particular infant. Someone didn't want this particular infant to live, imo.

"Usual suspect" in this type of case comes to mind as well as someone jealous. IMO, whoever did this has experience with a knife. (Or someone with mental illness, such as hearing voices to use a knife.)

The knife is key. The baby is key.

Only my opinion, subject to change as we learn more about the case.

So sad. My heart goes out to the extended family members who are living in shock now.

Not sure I agree with the perp having probable experience with a knife. Case in point: Nicole Brown Simpson. However, I would think that there would have to be some kind of serious rage to want to slash someone's throat. That just seems a particularly brutal way to die. I agree that the baby was key in this murder. Poor little thing.

 

[Elle*Bee]

Lawyering up is not the problem here... the not cooperating is. To me, anyway.

MOO

^^^^ this

 

[Cannonball3804]

I'm sorry - I would never lawyer up if my baby had his throat slashed. I would rather go to
prison. Nothing matters more than my child. I know - everyone is going to disagree w/ me -
but that is how I feel. I asked hubby - he said basically the same thing, he would never
lawyer up - we don't care if LE thinks what they think. I guess, again, that's the norm again,
hire a lawyer - don't cooperate w/ LE. Really?

I hope you and your spouse are never in that situation. And let's be clear - just because a person wants to have a representative with him during interviews doesn't equate to "lawyering up" or not cooperating.

And what if we found out that the total number of hours he had already spent being interviewed was pretty high - let's say 8 or 10 hours? If you're innocent, what can you possibly answer that you haven't already given them in the first 8 or 10 hours? At that point they aren't looking for new answers. They are hoping you will either (1) confess, or (2) trip yourself up by giving them conflicting information.

It's very possible to seem to be giving conflicting info but be innocent. We don't always remember details of exactly when we left the house, or a zillion other details.

LEvat some point stops looking at you as an innocent and starts looking at you as a perp, and everything they try to get from you at that point has nothing to do with your self-interest. Whether he's guilty or not, CV may have reached a point where he realized LE wasn't treating him as an innocent.

Heck, they might have just been playing good cop bad cop to see what would happen, and the "bad" part could have scared the heck out of him. Very few of us have ever been inside an interrogation room, so hard to say how we would react.


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[liltexans]

Terrific. Thanks for this info ^.
When it's avail, hope someone will bring a transcript link to this thread.

Here's the transcript link:

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1612/21/ptab.01.html

 

[R@ngers#1]

Slitting of a throat seems very drug cartel like. Mix in the fact that one if the victims was a baby and its is even more evil. Who ever did this is an animal. It's very suspicious to me that CV is hindering the investigation by not cooperating fully.

 

[Tssiemer]

I think it's odd CV went back to Colorado. TX LE has no access to him. Wouldn't his and her family come to him?


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[liltexans]

The 36-year-old and her husband, Craig Vandewege, had recently welcomed their son, Diederick, after moving from Colorado after Craig got a promotion at work.

&#8220;She had wanted a family since she was a little girl. She planned it out, including names, before she was 12,&#8221; childhood friend Monica Vance writes in an email to PEOPLE.

http://people.com/crime/texas-mom-w...n-birth-after-3-miscarriages-says-her-father/

 

[liltexans]

I think it's odd CV went back to Colorado. TX LE has no access to him. Wouldn't his and her family come to him?


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I believe Shanna and her baby's funeral and burial are going to take place in Colorado so he may have gone back for those preparations. I think it will be interesting to see if he returns to Texas after the funeral.

 

[Oregonmama]

I think it's odd CV went back to Colorado. TX LE has no access to him. Wouldn't his and her family come to him?


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I would like my children to be buried in my state. I don't see it as unusual for the daughter and grandchild to have their funeral in CO. They just moved to TX recently. More loved ones in CO