This horrible murder has much to do, I suspect, with the fact that children with disabilities are not receiving full services during the pandemic. I further suspect that the hours the child was in school were the times this woman was able to live something approaching a normal life, and when that was taken from her, she snapped and killed her poor child.
She had no recourse to the normal assistance available for families of children with serious disabilities, no emergency respite care, not even a neighbor who could watch her son for half an hour so she could go to the grocery store. Depending on the seriousness of the child's disability, she may not have been able to use the toilet or take a shower unless he was sleeping.
Nothing excuses taking your child's life, but people who have not experienced life with a severely disabled child are too quick, imo, to condemn parents who see no other solution to their despair--and in these times, it's hard to think of how this mother could have gotten help.
The murder does not mean she did not love her child. It means she did not know what else to do.
I am surprised, in fact, that she did not commit suicide, which is the normal pattern in situations like this. There are examples of entire families being murdered, with one committing suicide, because they did not know what to do about caring for their disabled child.
Sadly, I predict there will be more cases like this unless services for people with disabilities, especially respite programs for children who live at home, are opened.
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