Woman sentenced to die for slaying grandchildren
Steffan Carroll
is a few weeks old
and I forgot to record the date of publication.
"Woman sentenced to die for slaying grandchildren"
By Dan Reed, Mercury News Staff Writer
A Hayward [CA] woman who slashed to death her two young grandchildren in a fit
of spite rather than
turn one of the children over to his natural father was condemned to death
Friday after a judge
refused her lawyers' pleas to put her behind bars for life.
Caroline Young, a single mother with no previous criminal record, is now the
oldest of eight women
on California's death row and the first woman from Alameda Country ever
sentenced to death.
Her gray-streaked hair pulled into a ponytail, Young, 51, listened impassively
as Superior Court
Judge Stanley Golde spent 15 minutes calmly announcing that a jury acted
reasonably in July when it
recommended her execution for the 1993 slayings.
"Any building that is built will fall down, any bridge that is built will
eventually fall down, but
it is a man's children or offspring that give him immortality," Gold said in
pronouncing his
sentence for the "totally repulsive" double murders of Darrin Torres, 6, and
Dai-Zshia Torres, 4.
One of Young's daughters, tearful and emotional, waved and call out, "Bye,
Mama," as a sheriff's
deputy lead Young away, preparing her for the trip to the Central California
Women's Facility in
Chowchilla.
The case will be appealed automatically to the state Supreme Court and then can
be appealed by writs
to federal court.
The murders grew out of a festering child custody dispute involving one of
Young's three children,
Vanessa Torres, who is currently in state prison on a unrelated drug conviction.
Torres gave birth to Darrin and Dai-Zshia but kept Darrin's natural father from
knowing her
whereabouts so she could collect monthly foster care checks. Once prosecutors
tracked down
Barrington Bruce in 1991 and billed him for more that $12,000 in back child
support, he sought and
won custody of his son.
The murders occurred on the morning of June 18, 1993, just hours before the
boy's father was to pick
up his son. Prosecutors say Young pushed little Darrin in to a mattress or
pillow to muffle his
screams while she cut his throat with a 2-inch butcher knife.
Steffan in San Jose, CA
Michael Stemper
> It seems to me that most of the child-death stories
> I've heard over the past couple years involve the
> mother (or some maternal figure) as the culprit.
> When the father (or paternal figure) is the culprit,
> the case usually involves murder-suicide, i.e. the
> father kills himself as well.
>
> Does anyone know of any studies to this effect?
> Is it generally true that:
>
> 1) while fathers kill themselves also when they
> kill their children, while mothers usually have little
> or no intention of self-destruction when they murder
> their offspring?
No info on this one.
> 2) mothers are more likely to murder their children
> than fathers are?
>
> Does anyone have any studies describing the ratio
> of mother-murderers to father-murderers?
>
>From a post by Linda Dunn:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Justice Department examined 8,000 homicides in 75 large urban counties.
Some of you may not like the statistics, but here they are:
[snip]
Mothers accounted for 55% of defendants in slayings of offspring and were more
likely to murder a son than a daughter. (64% killed sons while 36% killed
daughters) But when a father killed his child, he was more likely to kill a
daughter than a son.
The report is NCJ-143498, Murder in Families.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
I wouldn't call 55% a real significant difference, especially when you
factor in how many kids live with only their mothers.
The thought of that little voice crying out, "Mommy, I promise I won't
do it again!" haunted me.
--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
mste...@empros.com
kenneth ryan 06-05-92
Go to your local library's Government Documents Section and peruse the
following: "Murder In Families" (a reference to which was posted on
10.27/95 on FREE-L). It was published by the U. S. Department of Justice in
1994 and it summarizes studies made on more than 8,000 homicides in 75 large
urban counties in 1988. If a parent murdered his or her child, the murderer
was most often the mother (55%), rather than the father (45%). Mothers
killed sons (64%) more often than they killed daughters (36%), while fathers
killed sons or daughters with approximately equal frequency (48% vs. 52%).
Unknown are the effects of such truama on the perps and whether, indeed, if
the fathers, as perps, chose to take their own lives. The document may be
found in your library under SuDoc No. J29.13: M 94/2.
kryan
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>"Woman sentenced to die for slaying grandchildren"
>>By Dan Reed, Mercury News Staff Writer
>
>It seems to me that most of the child-death stories
>I've heard over the past couple years involve the
>mother (or some maternal figure) as the culprit.
>When the father (or paternal figure) is the culprit,
>the case usually involves murder-suicide, i.e. the
>father kills himself as well.
>
>Does anyone know of any studies to this effect?
>Is it generally true that:
>
>1) while fathers kill themselves also when they
>kill their children, while mothers usually have little
>or no intention of self-destruction when they murder
>their offspring?
>
>and
>
>2) mothers are more likely to murder their children
>than fathers are?
>
>Does anyone have any studies describing the ratio
>of mother-murderers to father-murderers?
>
>Thanks,
>
>Doug
>dsba...@ingr.com
Bailey, Doug S
Jim Wargacki
With that I think the father's percentage is greatly reduced.