Stabbing of 2-month-old probed
Police investigate the scene of a stabbing involving a 2-month-old child Tuesday at 10181 Windmill Lakes Blvd. The incident occurred about 2 a.m. at Longboat Key Apartment Homes, said David Stark, a homicide investigator with the Houston Police Department.
A Houston mother was charged Tuesday with capital murder, accused of stabbing her 2-month old son to death.
Investigators are searching for answers in the killing of Levi Thornton-Smith, including whether Rochelle Brown was battling postpartum depression.
The 28-year-old woman was taken to a hospital for observation, released and then placed into police custody.
“According to homicide investigators, there is no known motive at this time,” Houston Police spokesman Keese Smith said earlier Tuesday.
The woman’s two other children, who are estimated to be 8 and 5, along with her adult sister, were in the third-story apartment asleep at the time of the stabbing, police said. They were not injured. Brown stabbed her son with a knife, according to court documents.
Both Houston Police and the Department of Family and Protective Services are investigating facets of the incident, reported at 2:30 a.m. at the Longboat Key Apartments on Windmill Lakes Boulevard in southeast Houston.
Chilling crime
The little boy’s death marked another homicide for investigators, but few crimes are as chilling and inexplicable as this one, authorities said.
“It is just unfathomable for most people to even think about: How could a parent do something like this?” the protective services agency’s spokeswoman, Estella Olguin, said. “This is an innocent child. Many times the perpetrator is the person they trusted the most, the person who is supposed to keep them safe and from harm.”
Olguin said everything from the woman’s mental history, to possible drug use, to why the family recently moved here from out of state, will be investigated.
“All these pieces we are going to try and put together,” she said.
The surviving children were placed in the custody of their aunt, she said.
The death harkens to past local cases, such as Jenea Ann Mungia, who was charged in February with beating and stabbing her 4-year-old son.
He was in critical condition but survived. She faces a December competency hearing.
Perhaps the nation’s most infamous such case involves Andrea Yates, who in 2001 drowned her five children in the bathtub of her Clear Lake home.
She was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of capital murder. An appeals court granted Yates a new trial, and a jury found her not guilty by reason of insanity. She was sentenced to a mental hospital.
Hormones ‘shift’
Houston lawyer George Parnham, who still represents Yates, said such cases are complex and hard to grasp.
“It is the very definition of motherhood turned upside down,” he said. “It is hard for lawyers to understand, hard for the public to understand and hard for potential jurors to understand.”
Parnham said that if it turns out the mother has postpartum depression, she would basically have a hormonal imbalance triggered by the recent birth.
“You have a chemical imbalance that is causing delusional thoughts,” he said, noting that some mothers with postpartum depression can hear voices, have hallucinations and conjure bizarre thoughts.
McClain Sampson, an assistant professor at the Graduate College of Social Work at the University of Houston, said mental illness usually plays a role in such cases, but that doesn’t necessarily mean postpartum depression is the culprit.
“When women give birth, their hormones go through a major shift,” said Sampson, who specializes in postpartum depression. “For some people, that is a trigger.”
Possible conditions
A mother could have an array of underlying conditions, such as a predisposition for mental illness or problems handling stress, she said.
“It is kind of a perfect storm when something goes this tragically wrong, a storm that has been building,” Sampson said. “When you have a child, it is a major, challenging transition in life.”
Nearly all women have a temporary hormonal imbalance after giving birth, and about 15 percent experience depression, but that rarely leads to psychosis that involves hearing voices and serous thoughts of harming a child, she said.
Mothers may be hesitant to share feelings of depression or of not wanting to bond with their child, for fear it will be interpreted as wanting to harm their child, she said.
“But what people need to know, is that is a different thing than having delusions and hallucinations about hurting your child,” she continued. “It is a difference between, ‘let’s intervene and have somebody give you support’ and ‘let’s get you to Ben Taub’s psychiatric unit immediately.’ ”