But She Didn’t Forget to Show Up for Work

July 7, 2011

A WASHINGTON, D.C.-area mother left her child alone in a minivan while she went to work in January and only remembered she had forgot to drop him off at day care when the day care center called to ask where he was.

Last month, she did the same thing again, and the two-year-old boy did not survive. Karen Murphy, described as a “wonderful mother” by her attorney, was charged with criminal homicide this week in connection with the death of her son, Ryan. According to figures cited in The Washington Examiner, 18 U.S. children have died so far this year from similar neglect, most of them from middle- and upper-class families. Last year, a total of 49 children died.

— Comments —

James P., who sent the above story, writes:

She abandoned her child in the car in January, but he survived. Then she did it again — and this time the boy died. Whatever alarm the first episode caused seems to have worn off in a mere six months.

Hurricane Betsy writes:

[The link below was originally omitted from this comment.]

It can happen to non-middle-class people who don’t “work”, too, though I am not disagreeing with your basic point.

Not that my opinion has any worth, but I don’t think the above woman should be punished. Let’s look at the whole picture: there’s going to be 6 children left for “us” to take care of while she cools her heels in gaol. I looked away for a minute (or less) and “lost” my not-yet-two-year old son when he snuck out of the house, went into the detached garage, activated the automatic door and went to view the world. He was found, but I still feel shaky when I think about this.

These things happen. In my case, it could have ended up much, much worse

Laura writes:

The case you mention is very different. The child was in a safe place and wandered off. The mother was negligent, but not in the same way. If she is convicted of any criminal charges, the judge can consider her other children when sentencing her.

Josh F. writes:

At some point soon, we will need to see these “negligent homicides” as calculated premeditated murder by “mothers” who now, quite inexplicably, have the burden of the world on their shoulders. These are “acts” of end-point liberalism and of course end-point liberalism is self-annihilating. Abortion, euthanasia and INFANTICIDE are acts of self-annihilation. The “progression” of radical liberalism is thus: a mother has a “fundamental right” to kill her child in utero > a mother has a “fundamental right” to kill her child, period. What we are witnessing (Casey Anthony, anyone?) is the radical acceptance of infanticide under the auspices of a TOTALLY contrived and sought-out reality; a reality where females are allowed to murder because THEY CHOOSE to overburden themselves and fight for the “right” to be psychologically taxed to the point of calculating the murder of their NOW BORN children.

We are on the verge of the a great culling. End-point liberalism says so.

Laura writes:

Just as a side point, I don’t think Casey Anthony is a good example of what you are describing. There was not acceptance of what she was accused of doing, and the public was horrified by it. In acquitting her, the jury was not necessarily accepting her, but acting upon the evidence offered.

By “calculated premeditated murder” in the cases of children left in cars, I assume you mean calculated in the sense that the warning signs of the danger to children posed by these pressures on women are willfully ignored. That is true.

M.J. writes:

I disagree with the statistics quoted. Most heat-related child death in cars is not from “middle class, working” people. I live in south Texas with an 83% Hispanic population ratio. Also, Texas has the most such deaths among all the states. In my two county area there have been five baby/young child deaths per year for the last few years, all of them Hispanic and all with three to seven children in the family. Only one has had a father in the home and it was the only one that was a non-welfare family and the only one in which the father was the one who left the baby in the car. Since June 11 my two county area has had two baby deaths and one three year old who died from heat while enclosed in a car, unattended.

I couldn’t find statistics online, but Houston and Dallas/Fort Worth have several such instances each year. Most in Houston are from Hispanic and black families. These statewide cases usually always make the local news because there is such a high incidence of car/heat deaths in our own area. The only statistic I could find at Texas Dept. of Health Services was 27 heat related deaths in Texas between 1999-2004 in the age group between birth and four years of age. There were 10 such deaths in my two county area during those same years but it has become even more common than in 2004. This is the first year any charges have been filed;-two of the three mothers have been charged with manslaughter. Some of the cases in our area were not from mothers ‘forgetting’

the child was in the car but because the mother left the infant in the car because she went into a bar or to an afternoon barbeque/birthday party. Two years ago, one couple left an infant in the car while they went to a party on Saturday and did not ‘remember’ the baby in the car until Sunday night and after the temperature had been 97 degrees during the day(this happened in my town.)

Although the heat related deaths are not further defined, I assume that the birth to 4 year numbers were more than likely to be from children left in cars.

Laura writes:

It makes sense that many of them would not be from middle class families. The Washington Examiner quoted Loretta Walker of the organization Safe Kids as saying that most of them are from “middle- and upper-class families.”

Josh F. writes:

I think we are missing the point of these deaths when we focus on who they are “happening” to and not focusing on the fact that many of these are killings. These “accidents” are in fact designed killings with the intent of receiving no punishment AND maximizing the killer’s radical autonomy. They are acts of infanticide. They are the logical “progression” of radical liberalism. More specifically, they are a “progressive” extension of abortion. Having implanted fully a rationalization and justification regime that says not that woman CAN do it all, but that woman MUST do it all, these “accidents” become perfect cover for the murder of the modern female’s “autonomous burdens.”

Yes, part of the public was horrified at the Casey Anthony verdict, but that part of the public that counted acquitted her absolutely. I did not say there was a total acceptance of “legal” infanticide. I only said that the logic of radical liberalism — which is self-annihilating — will continue to seek a radical acceptance of infanticide and our radically liberal society will come to accept this. And at this point, it will take a radical mindset like that of the Anthony jury to see these increasing number of toddler deaths as NOTHING more than “accidents” CAUSED by severely overburdened “mothers.” Clearly, many of these “accidents” are murders.

By the way, I am in the process of raising a fourth two-year-old. The idea that one could forget a two-year-old in the car seems impossible. A child this age will almost certainly either be requiring constant attention or they will have fallen asleep alerting one to this occasionally alleviating event.

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Posted by Laura Wood in Uncategorized

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