"Homeschooling" mother who killed 2 kids and put them in her

[freehannie]

There is a case in Detroit where a mother killed 2 of her children at 2 separate times and placed their bodies in her freezer. They were only discovered when she was evicted from her apartment. In order to explain their absence from school she claimed to be homeschooling all of her children. All of her children were subject to horrific abuse for years.

http://www.freep.com/story/news/columnists/rochelle-riley/2015/04/02/teacher-tried-save-kid-killed-placed-freezer/70866054/

http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/01/us/mother-charged-in-freezer-deaths/

(Not breaking links because they are news sites)

Had there been some kind of oversight of her "homeschooling" perhaps the 2nd murdered child would still be alive.

[Cleopatra7]

I remember hearing about this case, but didn't know there was a homeschooling element to it. As extreme and rare as situations like this may be, they illustrate how abusive and even homicidal parents can use unregulated homeschooling as a dodge to keep their kids out of sight and out of mind to the outside world. If educational neglect isn't enough of a reason to regulate homeschooling, then the possibility of hiding abuse and/or murder should be at the top of the list.

[eri]

Sadly there are rare/semi-uncommon occurrences of homeschooling being used to hide abusive situations. For some reason, no agencies exist to check in on the welfare of homeschooled kids (in my state or possibly even US).

[Bethella]

A teacher even reported the family to CPS when the girl was missing school but nothing was done.

Weeks later, Stoni was still out of school and a frantic Fredlund called Child Protective Services, who told him something he says he has never forgotten: "In the state of Michigan, (a lack of school) attendance is not neglect."

http://www.freep.com/story/news/columni ... /70866054/

[DGayle]

Homeschooling is a red herring. It was an excuse for why she wasn't in school, and that's all. Homeschooling has nothing to do with this. That mother is a monster, and I feel bad for the kids and for the teacher who tried getting help.

[Burris]

Homeschooling is a red herring. It was an excuse for why she wasn't in school, and that's all. Homeschooling has nothing to do with this. That mother is a monster, and I feel bad for the kids and for the teacher who tried getting help.

...except that by virtue of poor oversight, brought about in part by religious parents who fear a standardized curriculum will turn their kids gay [yes, I'm being a little facetious, but not by all that much], there is no way to tell if a kid is absent from the classroom because she's learning at home or because he mom killed her and stuffed her body in a freezer.

I think it's pretty fair to ask why a lack of school attendance isn't considered neglect in the state where this occurred, and just as fair to look at holes in a homeschool system that allows parents to keep their kids ignorant. The whole fucking point of universal education was to prevent widespread ignorance (and later, to keep kids within reach of a mandated reporter as well).

No, I don't think homeschooling should be illegal; I think keeping kids off any registers should be illegal. There should be a homeschool monitor of sorts, where the kids present themselves alive once a year if only just to be counted in the census. It isn't even necessary to standardize the curriculum (y'know, because the kids...vaccines...science..,.gayness...oh God).

[Toothfairy]

There are parents out there very very few who homeschool to abuse their kids. I think there should be some type of procedure or law that requires states to check up on homeschoolers. I believe NC wanted to pass a bill like this.

As for the mother homeschooling was just an excuse to murder her poor innocent children.

[BrownieMomma]

Probably no kind of oversight of homeschoolers would have changed this outcome. If the kids were required to show up somewhere at some time, then a convenient excuse to feign illness or something.

Point fingers at the fathers - IIRC they just didn't even attempt to see their children for several years.

If they are just that unfit themselves, what about other relatives? How could no one question not seeing these kids for years?

Like the pilot, some people are simply unhinged. It won't stop them by placing a bunch of restrictions on everyone else. The madness, the evil, it is there and will come out somehow, and some law isn't going to prevent it.

[momof2treasures]

This is a horrific story. The "homeschooling" twist is something you hear repeatedly in these cases though. A child , often with a lot of instability, is suddenly pulled from school for homeschooling. These parents are using this right as a cover for abuse. The question is how do you identify these situations vs. A normal homeschooling situation. I am aware that most homeschoolers are not abused, just saying that this is a common tactic in severe abuse cases.

[ILoveJellybeans]

This is why there should be insight into homeschooling. So many kids aren't seen in the world often enough for people to notice them. And for a lot of them, its because they are being beaten and they don't want others to see, and others are dead and hidden in a freezer.

[BrownieMomma]

This is why there should be insight into homeschooling. So many kids aren't seen in the world often enough for people to notice them. And for a lot of them, its because they are being beaten and they don't want others to see, and others are dead and hidden in a freezer.

No, this is why fathers should make an effort to see their own children.

[dianapavelovna]

No, this is why fathers should make an effort to see their own children.

Please see here for plenty of examples of fathers who saw their children and horribly abused them while "homeschooling" them and then go back to child-beating church.

[HoneyBunny]

No, this is why fathers should make an effort to see their own children.

These families are not the Waltons. Did the fathers even know they had children? Most likely, the mother was abused and/or mentally ill. I suspect grandma and the aunts and uncles were not waiting in the wings to lend aid and support. The need for safety nets in cases like these is exactly why there needs to be government involvement and oversight of some level. In a perfect world, kids would not need protection in their own homes but this is far from a perfect world.

(Reminds me of Mitt Romney saying we should all start businesses and borrow money from our parents to do it. What fantasy world has he been living in??)

[Terrie]

The fact is that there are people who homeschool to keep their kids away from mandatory reporters. They might be a small minority, but, IMO, it's a serious enough issues that the loophole needs to be closed.

[ILoveJellybeans]

No, this is why fathers should make an effort to see their own children.

Yes, I think that if you make a baby with someone, you should make an effort to be part of their lives (unless there is a risk that prevents both parents from seeing a child, like one parent being abusive), but there are cases that ended the same way, where both parents have been actively abusing their children, or one parent is abusing both the children and the other parent.

[Peas n carrots]

The unfortunate fact is that homeschooling is a guise used by some people to go unnoticed with neglect or abuse. If the kids had been kept in a public school there would have been a greater likelihood of the children's abuse coming to light. Homeschooling isn't the problem but it is the way certain states have a hands off approach that allows abusers to get away with hurting children.

[BrownieMomma]

I don't necessarily agree that just being in school was going to protect these children. There are too many schools in struggling areas that cannot meet the needs of the kids who are showing up.

Homeschooling is not the culprit here. Clearly this mother was mentally ill. There were fathers. How does a woman have four children and virtually no other relative or neighbor or person of any kind who knows the family well enough to realize some of the kids are missing for years?

How do we save children from mentally ill parents? Saying all children need to be school or all homeschool families need to have more government oversight does not address the issue at all.

Not too long ago, a young woman set her infant on fire in the street. So... clearly too young for school. What then? Can't throw that under the bus of homeschooling. Some kind of government oversight about owning matches or lighters?

Blaming homeschool is pushing a real solution farther away. Someone sick enough to kill their own child and then put the child in a freezer isn't going to be stopped or slowed down by more government oversight of homeschooling. One has nothing to do with the other.

I don't know how to stop mentally ill people without seriously violating the civil rights of everyone. The more I read about the pilot the more I understand this. I understood it when that guy shot up a theater during the Batman movie. These men planned their heinous acts in advance. So did the 9/11 terrorists and the guy who built a bomb from fertilizer and took down a federal building.

How do you identify and help people who truly need it before they hurt others? A few weeks ago I read of a young man in CA who had never shown any inclination whatsoever but he murdered his parents and shot his brother.

I don't know. I don't have an answer. It sure sounds like the system of health care for the pilot was working as intended. How much more could have been done to stop the pilot? Do we truly want doctors reporting to employers that employees have been treated for depression?

I think we cannot stop every bad thing from happening. People who want to harm others are not concerned with laws and legislation and will find ways around it. That's just about a guarantee. That is about the only certainty.

If you try to base laws and rules and mandates based on outliers, you then harm the majority. It is incorrect to say this was a homeschool mother who murdered her children. The correct title is "Mentally ill mother murdered her children."

[Lissa1481]

This mother still could have/would have done this even if they were in public school, she just would have been caught sooner. But it would still have been too late.

[momof2treasures]

This child could have been saved actually if the district had any requirements at all about registering for homeschool with some sort of documentation . There is no follow up at all in the school according to the article. A child can simply stop coming to school and by law cps doesn't have the right to even look into it. The brother was killed and stuffed in the freezer the in the fall and the girl was killed the following spring. If this boys disappearance was investigated she could possibly still be alive.

[formergothardite]

Homeschooling isn't the culprit, but there are enough horror stories coming out from former homeschool students about how the lack of oversight let their parents continue physical and education abuse that people should be very concerned about the lack of oversight. No, it might not save every abused child, but it would make it harder for parents to get away with abuse. There is nothing at this point to prevent parents from using homeschooling to abuse their children.

[polecat]

There are fail-safes built into the system designed to protect kids. Teachers, pediatricians, etc. are mandated reporters. Kids who are home schooled will still generally see a pediatrician at least occasionally and if not a regular doctor, then an emergency room doctor or a PA or a nurse practitioner. Rarely do kids fly entirely under the radar without contact with anyone else, but it can and does happen and more frequently than it should.

The thing is, abusive families also have their own fail-safes built in to protect the abusers. Secrecy, lies, hiding ... Kids from abusive families are rarely going to out their parents. It happens, but I suspect it only happens in a minority of cases. Kids just don't chuck their parents under the bus -- they fell, they got in a fight with their brother, they ran into the door, they knocked the hot pan off, etc. Hell, the two surviving kids in this obviously dysfunctional family even protected their mother. (And NO, I am absolutely not putting any of this on their shoulders, and I want to clarify that before anyone misunderstands me). It's a natural response. And even after they grow up, they are often STILL reluctant to point the finger at their parents. They protect them and hide the abuse and pretend like nothing bad happened.

Kids will continue to be abused and murdered until someone figures out how to get past this nearly universal problem.

[Terrie]

If you try to base laws and rules and mandates based on outliers, you then harm the majority. It is incorrect to say this was a homeschool mother who murdered her children. The correct title is "Mentally ill mother murdered her children."

Bullshit. There is no evidence that this woman was mentally ill. And how does saying that homeschooling shouldn't be aloowed to be used as a method to hide children away harm the majority of homeschoolers?

[ariel9]

Bullshit. There is no evidence that this woman was mentally ill. And how does saying that homeschooling shouldn't be aloowed to be used as a method to hide children away harm the majority of homeschoolers?

True there may not be a clinical diagnosis of mental illness but when your mind formulates the thoughts to torture and put the bodies of your kids in the freezer all is not well. Yes we have all been mad at some point but when were mad enough to harm others you need help. What mentally sound mother do that?

[roddma]

Someone made a comment on our local newspaper site blaming the lack of Christian values I piped back saying religion is often a cause. However,in this case it was just a run of the mill monster.The comments got deleted. I wish there were more oversight for homeschool. or if there are extended absences at school, an immediate investigation required by law. It is sad no one would investigate. I know you can't prevent every bad thing, but tougher homeshcool laws may have gone along way in preventing the death of at least one kid.

[DGayle]

A lot of children go to public schools, are horribly abused, and still fly under the radar. It's not fair to look at how to prevent homeschool kids form being victims of abuse while pretending that public schools are good monitors of it. The rate of abuse of kids who go to public schools is horrifying, yet getting ignored in all this. Saying that homeschoolers should have to present themselves as alive once a year to make sure they're alive and not abused isn't going to do much when kids who go to public schools every single day after often abused, and the teachers who know them better than a once-a-year viewing miss it. It might actually make parents push harder to keep off the radar since what this is saying to them is they're going to be suspected of abuse unless they bring their kids for a formal viewing to see the kids are alive.

Public schools provide a false sense of comfort. If the Pearls have taught anything, it should be that parents can terribly abuse their kids and still get by unnoticed because there are horrible people out there who actually think about, and teach, how to whip kids without it leaving any noticeable signs of abuse.