Subway mom is dead
Jason...@virgin.net
Subway mom is dead
By IAN ROBERTSON and JONATHAN KINGSTONE -- Toronto Sun
Dr. Suzanne Killinger-Johnson, who killed her infant son when she
leapt in front of a speeding subway train a week ago, died in hospital
last night.
"Dr. Killinger-Johnson died peacefully at 8:30 (p.m.)," said Sandra
Cruickshanks, head of public affairs at Sunnybrook hospital. "The family
wishes total privacy on this. That is all they want me to release."
Last night, Killinger-Johnson's grief-stricken family crowded into her
Forest Hill area home, but a man who came to the door refused to
comment. "I'm sorry, not tonight, but thank you anyway," he said.
A family physician and psychotherapist, Killinger-Johnson, 37, flung
herself and her sleeping baby under a TTC train at the St. Clair West
station a week ago Friday.
Her six-month-old son, Cuyler, was killed on impact. Killinger-Johnson
had suffered massive internal injuries and is believed to have undergone
several surgeries before succumbing to her injuries.
A former patient of Killinger-Johnson remembered the psychotherapist
and dermatologist as a caring doctor who treated her well and encouraged
her trust.
"She was everything they've said about her in the media," said the
woman, who was treated for a skin condition shortly after the doctor
graduated.
Despite being watched around the clock by family and friends,
Killinger-Johnson escaped after police drove her home from another
subway station around 1:30 a.m. last Friday and took Cuyler to St. Clair
station. She slipped out after one of her minders was in a washroom.
Experts say mothers afflicted with the most serious type of post-partum
depression can hide symptoms, appear normal and become dillusional,
believing voices are telling them to kill their babies as a means to
save them from harm.
Killinger-Johnson had also stopped taking anti-depressants, fearing the
medication might harm her breast-feeding son.
Police had turned her over to her executive businessman husband Doug
Johnson and her father, Dr. Donald Killinger, an internal medicine
specialist. Her mom, psychologist Dr. Barbara Killinger, has written
books on stress, depression and anxiety but wasn't with them when police
arrived. Their daughter graduated from the University of Western Ontario
in London in 1988, spent last year as a psychotherapist at King's Health
Centre in Toronto. She took maternity leave before her first child was
born, in February. His funeral was held on Tuesday.
King's Health VP Gregory Koval said his clinic was looking forward to
her return and staff were shocked by the incident.
"She was very pleasant, personable, thoughtful and concerned," said the
former patient who was treated by Killinger-Johnson for a skin ailment
in the late 1980s. "This is such a loss for her family, her parents and
the medical community. She gave so much."