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Browsing on Fark today I found this joyless little story:
I guess it's remotely possible that some weird-ass series of events conspired to take this woman's baby from her and she genuinely felt that contacting the authorities was a worst-case scenario. The sort of Hollywood-esque story that Jodie Foster would get cast in. It is for the authorities to sort out what the truth is. But the smart money is on her ditching her kid somewhere and simply hoping that nobody would notice.
Lets leave aside, for the moment, what would make a person abandon/neglect/kill their child. What makes you think that nobody would notice? The answer, I think, is that they don't consider the actions beyond the moment. They simply don't think that far ahead. These are not criminal masterminds.
If it were me - and if I were a psycho-rat-bastard - I sure as hell wouldn't stick around. I'd become estranged from my family and move far away to where nobody knew me. Original location: Woman had a kid and moved. New Location: Single woman shows up who never had a kid. If the kid is young enough you might be able to ignore the paper trail assuming nobody was looking for the child.
Of course, that level of forethought pretty much means I wouldn't find myself in that situation in the first place.
Best suggestion I heard in the Fark thread: We need to let people know that they have another option. Leave your kid at the hospital/police station/fire department. Make it somewhat anonymous (i.e. just enough questions so that the kids don't have unknown medical issues) so that it doesn't scare too many away. Especially if the mother isn't an adult yet. Of course, that option needs to actually exist. It might even exist, but I sure don't know.
Of course this kid was three years old and the mom was 22, so it might not apply to her specifically. But then again, maybe it would have helped - maybe if that was an option three years ago, she wouldn't have done - something else - now?
Now we have a mystery who's most likely outcome is tragedy for the child and punishment for the mother.
A woman accused of not reporting her daughter missing for five weeks refused to answer a judge's question of where her daughter was in a bizarre missing person case that continues to frustrate investigators.Now the obvious assumption is that this woman killed her kid, possibly directly, possibly through neglect (same thing happened a few years ago here in Cowtown).
I guess it's remotely possible that some weird-ass series of events conspired to take this woman's baby from her and she genuinely felt that contacting the authorities was a worst-case scenario. The sort of Hollywood-esque story that Jodie Foster would get cast in. It is for the authorities to sort out what the truth is. But the smart money is on her ditching her kid somewhere and simply hoping that nobody would notice.
Lets leave aside, for the moment, what would make a person abandon/neglect/kill their child. What makes you think that nobody would notice? The answer, I think, is that they don't consider the actions beyond the moment. They simply don't think that far ahead. These are not criminal masterminds.
If it were me - and if I were a psycho-rat-bastard - I sure as hell wouldn't stick around. I'd become estranged from my family and move far away to where nobody knew me. Original location: Woman had a kid and moved. New Location: Single woman shows up who never had a kid. If the kid is young enough you might be able to ignore the paper trail assuming nobody was looking for the child.
Of course, that level of forethought pretty much means I wouldn't find myself in that situation in the first place.
Best suggestion I heard in the Fark thread: We need to let people know that they have another option. Leave your kid at the hospital/police station/fire department. Make it somewhat anonymous (i.e. just enough questions so that the kids don't have unknown medical issues) so that it doesn't scare too many away. Especially if the mother isn't an adult yet. Of course, that option needs to actually exist. It might even exist, but I sure don't know.
Of course this kid was three years old and the mom was 22, so it might not apply to her specifically. But then again, maybe it would have helped - maybe if that was an option three years ago, she wouldn't have done - something else - now?
Now we have a mystery who's most likely outcome is tragedy for the child and punishment for the mother.
