WA WA - Sky Metalwala, 2, Bellevue, 6 Nov 2011 - #15

[Shelby2]

It's what I call the Veruca Salt phenomenon. Among maternal filicides committed over the last quarter century more and more often the perpetrator is entitled, selfish, demanding, and narcissistic. The stereotypical spoiled brat - children who grew to be parents that were never held responsible for their actions or inaction.

Shelby Dasher wanted to sleep. Casey Anthony and Stacey Barker wanted to party. Susan Smith and Diane Downs lusted after men who didn't want children. China Arnold wanted to get back at her boyfriend. As complex as these cases are the motive is strikingly simple - these women wanted something, when they wanted it, and their children got in the way.

However, often in the course of history over centuries, women have been thought to be less culpable than men in murdering their children. Society looks to 'excuse' their crimes by blaming substance abuse, domestic violence, and mental illness. The court has the same bias and while acquittals may be rare so too are the same sentences afforded both men and women who kill their children.

JMO

Interesting report about classifications of parents who kill their children:
http://www.publications.villanova.edu/Concept/2005/Filicide.pdf

 

[hambirg]

Well. . .I think we may have gotten the bank pics wrong. As a weird fluke I came across a photo that led me to First Security Bank, Redmond. Let me know if you think this is more likely than the bank we thought before.

It is closer to Bellevue. . .I'm not sure if that area is considered Crossroads. . .but it is south and west of what I consider Redmond proper. It's also very near a Ross.

 

[ladonna]

I've posted a blog on WS about these "kidnapped" baby cases and how similar they all are. These stories just keep piling up -- now with Ayla Reynolds in the news, it seems like there's a new missing baby case every week. We need to bring the real perpetrators to justice so parents can't just disappear their babies and say someone stole them out of a crib or the car and then go on to live their lives like their child never existed. It's sickening.

Great summation. Do I have your permission to post it on another board?

 

[Norwegian]

Interesting report about classifications of parents who kill their children:
http://www.publications.villanova.edu/Concept/2005/Filicide.pdf

Thanks for sharing, interesting read indeed.

 

[cluciano63]

Just read your blog! Very well done! I recommend it to everybody here.

Not my blog...I think the compliments are for the poster I was quoting...

 

[Rougelatete]

Great summation. Do I have your permission to post it on another board?

Yes! Absolutely! I really appreciate it. Please tell me where you posted it.

 

[Rougelatete]

Not my blog...I think the compliments are for the poster I was quoting...

Thanks Bendrn -- compliments are great however they arrive, lol!

 

[IHAVENOCLUE]

Thanks so much for answering the insanity vs. mental illness and the "rally when necessary" phenomenon questions. Great analogies...

In response to this post of yours, you guys may remember many threads ago when I posted about a book called "Mothers Who Kill", which was a remarkable study of women in prison for killing their children. A very interesting read, and it DOES cover the similar living situations as someone else here mentioned. Lower socioeconomic status and lower levels of education and a parental childhood exposure to violence being common contributors.

And in my own experience when I worked in PICU, was that our severe child abuse cases also typically sprang from that same general type of environment. Sadly enough, child abuse is no surprise from that front, even abuse extreme enough to cause the death of a child.

ETA: The majority of deaths secondary to child abuse that I witnessed back in the day WERE accidental. A hot-blooded crime, usually in which a frazzled/inebriated/unprepared/inexperienced/list goes on and on young parent lost control and beat or shook the child to death.

BUT the creepy thing to me is this seemingly newly emerging pattern of (evidently) pre-planned events surrounding killing babies! Good god! I have never seen such an awful phenomenon. It seems to go like this: Kill the baby, hide the body, get all worked up and call 911 to say it was kidnapped or carjacked or just vanished into thin air, then stop talking to the police, oh well, life goes on, might even get lucky and get a book deal or a movie out of it. AAUGH!:banghead:

WHAT is going on here???

Thank you for your post. It is informative to hear from people within the system who can give us first hand knowledge.
I had thought that these missing children cases were just brought to our attention more so now because of 24/7 news.
But you clarified that deaths were previously more from heat of passion, and now parents are using "CA's steps to ridding themselves of children".
CA's case brought me to WS because I was so angry at the outcome.
Thank you, again.

 

[bendrn]

Thanks Bendrn -- compliments are great however they arrive, lol!

It WAS your blog, Rougelatete. Not sure what the other is referencing.

ETA: Whoops - looking back I see that I accidently quoted the wrong poster. Not sure what happened there! Sorry for the confusion.

 

[bendrn]

Thank you for your post. It is informative to hear from people within the system who can give us first hand knowledge.
I had thought that these missing children cases were just brought to our attention more so now because of 24/7 news.
But you clarified that deaths were previously more from heat of passion, and now parents are using "CA's steps to ridding themselves of children".
CA's case brought me to WS because I was so angry at the outcome.
Thank you, again.

Thanks for the thanks.

BBM, the title of her new bestseller. Or even, "The Idiot's Guide To Disappearing Your Child So You Can Party".

I am reminded of old supernatural folklore, La Llorona, for example, an old Mexican tale of the mother who killed her children and now haunts the riverbeds seeking living children to replace the ones she killed "for love" of a wealthy man whom she thought would love her back if it weren't for her pesky children. Or Kali, the Hindu goddess with the necklace of skulls around her neck, a goddess of death and chaos.

In some awful way, I find myself viewing CA as the new, modern version of these old archetypes. It certainly seems that she set a precedence; if imitation is indeed the sincerest form of flattery, her actions seem to be imitated and therefore admired nowadays, at least weekly.

Makes me sick.

I am by nature a solution-finder, but I cannot even begin to imagine what the solution for this new wave of ammoral child killers would be. As gitana1 would be quick to point out (and as personally frustrating as it is for me, I love our Constitution and therefore have to agree with her) that even these self-centered and irresponsible members of our society are allowed Constitutional rights and the privelege of the Miranda Act.

So what can be done when these completely soulless killers have "the RIGHT to remain silent", without jeapordizing the rights of everyone else in the country???

I wish I knew.

 

[gitana1]

Thanks so much for answering the insanity vs. mental illness and the "rally when necessary" phenomenon questions. Great analogies...

In response to this post of yours, you guys may remember many threads ago when I posted about a book called "Mothers Who Kill", which was a remarkable study of women in prison for killing their children. A very interesting read, and it DOES cover the similar living situations as someone else here mentioned. Lower socioeconomic status and lower levels of education and a parental childhood exposure to violence being common contributors.

And in my own experience when I worked in PICU, was that our severe child abuse cases also typically sprang from that same general type of environment. Sadly enough, child abuse is no surprise from that front, even abuse extreme enough to cause the death of a child.

ETA: The majority of deaths secondary to child abuse that I witnessed back in the day WERE accidental. A hot-blooded crime, usually in which a frazzled/inebriated/unprepared/inexperienced/list goes on and on young parent lost control and beat or shook the child to death.

BUT the creepy thing to me is this seemingly newly emerging pattern of (evidently) pre-planned events surrounding killing babies! Good god! I have never seen such an awful phenomenon. It seems to go like this: Kill the baby, hide the body, get all worked up and call 911 to say it was kidnapped or carjacked or just vanished into thin air, then stop talking to the police, oh well, life goes on, might even get lucky and get a book deal or a movie out of it. AAUGH!:banghead:

WHAT is going on here???

I think many of these cases, though, were not pre-planned. Like Lisa's, Aliayah's, Jhessye's, Ayla's, Haleighs, etc. I think those kids probably did die of extreme abuse.

Others, like Caylee and Kyron, I think, were intentionally killed.

I think the difference is that before, parents were dumb enough to bring the child to the ER or call the police and state he or she "fell". Now they know that they can hide the body, that finding the baby is like finding a needle in a haystack and that they can simply get away with it.

It is infuriating.

I don't think her plan involved M being taken from her and placed in foster care and daddy getting custody of M. She may have felt everyone would believe her abduction story.

Think about it. If it had gone as she planned, she'd still have M with her. IMO, she still thinks they'll eventually reunite and that's why she's going along with it probably at the advice of her attorney.

If LE has nothing on her, they can't charge her. She won't get arrested. She got supervised visitation. She'll eventually get custody of M.

It's gotten eerily quiet since dad got custody for some reason. I can't find any updates since Dec. 5th.

JB is never going to regain custody of M. The system has figured out the huge mistake they made. More important, Sky went missing in her care after she admitted abandoning him on the side of the road. No court in the country would be crazy enough to ever give JB custody of any child, again. She is at the least, guilty of neglect leading to serious harm to a child.

 

[bendrn]

I think many of these cases, though, were not pre-planned. Like Lisa's, Aliayah's, Jhessye's, Ayla's, Haleighs, etc. I think those kids probably did die of extreme abuse.

Others, like Caylee and Kyron, I think, were intentionally killed.

I think the difference is that before, parents were dumb enough to bring the child to the ER or call the police and state he or she "fell". Now they know that they can hide the body, that finding the baby is like finding a needle in a haystack and that they can simply get away with it.
It is infuriating.



JB is never going to regain custody of M. The system has figured out the huge mistake they made. More important, Sky went missing in her care after she admitted abandoning him on the side of the road. No court in the country would be crazy enough to ever give JB custody of any child, again. She is at the least, guilty of neglect leading to serious harm to a child.

BBM. I think you have hit the nail on the head here. The difference still remains, though, that at least parents who would take their abused child to the ER were obligated to seek care for the child, no matter the cause of the injury. Something drove them to seek treatment - whether it be horror for what they had done, or love for the child, or whatever motive, they were still parent enough to seek medical care when it was needed.

What outrages and confuses me, is that the parents you have listed above seem to have zero sense of obligation to that child. All they seem to care about is covering their crime and moving on. Like cats in litterboxes.

 

[~n/t~]

JB is never going to regain custody of M. The system has figured out the huge mistake they made. More important, Sky went missing in her care after she admitted abandoning him on the side of the road. No court in the country would be crazy enough to ever give JB custody of any child, again. She is at the least, guilty of neglect leading to serious harm to a child.

bbm

She hasn't been charged nor arrested for anything. She may be guilty in the eyes of the public but not in a court of law.....yet.

 

[bendrn]

Also before I quit blabbing here for a while, I wanted to express gratitude to all you webleuthers! This is such a great forum, so many intelligent posters, so many excellent thoughts expressed. Whether I agree with everyone or not, thank you for being here. You guys make me think.

It is also a place where I can sleuth and think about these cases without my family saying, "Good God Almighty! Are you going on about dead and missing babies again?! Isn't there anything else happening on this planet!?" :crazy:

Not everyone shares the passion, I guess.

 

[SUNchips]

Interesting report about classifications of parents who kill their children:
http://www.publications.villanova.edu/Concept/2005/Filicide.pdf

Quoting from link, "While mentally ill filicidal mothers generally have psychiatric histories, they do not usually have any history of child abuse, and they generally describe having experienced a clear intention to kill (Stanton, Simpson, & Wouldes, 2000). In all studies impairment due to drugs and alcohol was rarely seen and was of little importance in the crimes."

IMO this could describe JB. I don't think she abused the children (besides MAYBE hurting them to blame it on SM, though she may not have done even that). I also think there may have been a clear intention to kill, especially if her motive was to get back at SM. Drugs have also not been brought up much in this case, to my knowledge.

Also MOO, I really hope Sky is safe with a relative or something but he is most likely not, I think he is gone, unfortunately. I think he was possibly drowned. I hate to even type that but it has been my gut feeling since the beginning.

 

[LCoastMom]

bbm

She hasn't been charged nor arrested for anything. She may be guilty in the eyes of the public but not in a court of law.....yet.

Julia admitted leaving Sky in the car, alone and leaving both children alone while she got her hair done, shopped for shoes and attended a 12 hour mediation session. That makes her her guilty of child neglect (at the very least) - by definition of the word.

Guilt is the state of being responsible for the commission of an offense.

We will need a court of law to decide exactly what she is guilty of and to pronounce sentence but we don't need the court to tell us she is guilty of what she has admitted to doing.

 

[hambirg]

Volunteers launch dual-state search for Sky Metalwala

http://www.king5.com/news/local/sky...state-search-for-Sky-Metalwala-135993918.html

It's not any new information, but volunteers are trying to take advantage holiday travel and passing out fliers up and down I-5.

I really want to know if those pics are from First Sterling by Crossroads. It changes things for me as far as where Sky is. It implies she had the car for sure during the time those pics were taken. . .and it makes me wonder how familiar JB is with the Crossroads area. I believe the carousel pics on her flickr were taken at Crossroads Mall. I wonder if he is in that area. . .I don't think there have been any searches there. :waitasec:

MOO

 

[SassyBenton]

The reason I am leaning towards this being the case:

JB has yet to be arrested. If LE had any real indication that she killed Sky (and I don’t think they do), don’t you think they would’ve arrested her by now? They have enough to get her on child endangerment. I can’t see LE letting someone who they believe killed their child walk the streets for this long. It is in LE’s best interest to keep JB out of jail right now and let her do her thing (which seems to be playing around on the internet). At some point, she will do something that will lead them to the person that has Sky, they are just patiently waiting. There is one search going on right now, but there hasn’t been any in weeks. Why aren’t LE out searching more thoroughly? Because they don’t think there is a body to search for. It’s also pretty clear that JB isn’t a very good liar, this was made obvious after LE found the car to have gas in it. Do you really think she killed her son and has been able to elude police for this long? I don’t.

 

[~n/t~]

Julia admitted leaving Sky in the car, alone and leaving both children alone while she got her hair done, shopped for shoes and attended a 12 hour mediation session. That makes her her guilty of child neglect (at the very least) - by definition of the word.

Guilt is the state of being responsible for the commission of an offense.

We will need a court of law to decide exactly what she is guilty of and to pronounce sentence but we don't need the court to tell us she is guilty of what she has admitted to doing.

bbm

Yes we do. In your country and mine, she is innocent until proven guilty and until today at 6:35 pm EST the last time I checked she wasn't guilty of anything in the eyes of the law. She's walking free.

 

[CarrieBean]

Innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, not public opinion. Lack of charges or evidence doesn't make a person innocent. She did something with Sky.