The Psycho Ex Wife

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China Arnold: Back in November of 2006 - China Arnold was arrested on suspicion of murdering her newborn daughter by putting the baby in a microwave oven. She was jailed on a charge of aggravated murder, more than a year after she brought her dead month-old baby to a hospital. Evidence included high-heat internal injuries and the absence of external burn marks on the baby. Rather than the death penalty, she was given life in prison without possibility of parole in August of 2008.

Susan Smith: Susan strapped her children into their car seats and ended their lives by putting the car in neutral and letting it roll down the boat ramp.   Michael and Alex Smith became murder victims when Psycho Mom reached into the car and released the parking brake sending the family car into John D. Long Lake.  She also initially lied, fabricated a story about a car-jacking and sent police and the public on a manhunt for a fabricated African American male. Judge Howard Susan Smith to thirty years to life in prison.  Psycho is eligible for parole in 2025.

Andrea Yates: Andrea filled the family tub with water and beginning with Paul, she systematically drowned the three youngest boys, then placed them on her bed and covered them. Mary was left floating in the tub. The last child alive was the first born, seven-year-old Noah. He asked his mother what was wrong with Mary, then turned and ran away. Andrea caught up with him and as he screamed, she dragged him and forced him into the tub next to Mary’s floating body. He fought desperately, coming up for air twice, but Andrea held him down until he was dead. Leaving Noah in the tub, she brought Mary to the bed and laid her in the arms of her brothers.  Andrea’s original conviction was overturned and she was found not-guilty by reason of insanity.

Sabine Hilschenz: In April of 2008, A German appeals court confirmed a 15-year prison sentence handed to this woman for killing eight of her newborn babies in the country’s worst post-war infanticide case. The remains of the babies were found in buckets and flowerpots at the home she shared with her husband, and in an old fish tank at the home of her parents in the town of Brieskow-Finkenheerd in former communist east Germany. She gave birth to nine babies - 2 boys and 7 girls - between 1988 and 1998. She was also accused of killing the first of the 9 babies, born in 1988, but the lower court ruled that the time in which she could be charged in connection with that death had lapsed.

Banita Jacks: In January of 2008, she was charged with three counts of felony murder and one count of first-degree murder while armed. She murdered 4 children in grisly fashion. Jacks told police that her daughters were possessed by demons and that each died in her sleep during a seven- to 10-day period. Preliminary findings were that Brittany was stabbed to death and that Aja died from blunt-force impact to the back of her head and possible ligature strangulation. Both Tatianna and N’kiah also had “apparent ligature evidence” on their necks that was “somewhat more defined than that noted on Aja Fogle’s neck,” court documents said. She kept her daughters for many months. Their bodies were found in the home severely decomposed.

Deanna Laney:  This psycho mom, who reported that she killed two of her three children “on God’s orders” was actually acquitted in April of 2004 and ordered into a state psychiatric facility in Texas.  Laney, an East Texas housewife, locked her sleeping husband in their bedroom and then went to Joshua and Luke’s room. She escorted Luke to a rock garden in the front yard of their home, which is encircled by a white split-rail fence. Laney told her son to lie down with his head on a rock and she took another large rock, raised it over her head and brought it down onto his skull. She then killed Joshua in the same manner. Both children were found dead with large stones lying on their chests. Aaron, the third son, 14 months old, was attacked with a rock in his crib but did not die.

Lisa Diaz: To “save her children from an evil world” - she drowned them.  Both of them.  Briana, 6, and Kamryn, 3, back in 2003.   A Collin County jury decided in August 2004 that Ms. Diaz did not know it was wrong to drown her two young daughters. She had been suffering from psychotic delusions and thought she was being merciful by killing them, according to testimony during the trial. As a result, the jury found her not guilty by reason of insanity. Prosecutors disagreed, saying that there were no signs of mental illness at the time of her arrest. In fact, they said, she showed remorse for her actions.  She was released after being found “mentally stable” after little more than 2-years in a psychiatric hospital.

Dena Schlosser: This psycho mother killed her eleven-month-old daughter, Margaret Schlosser, in 2004, amputating the baby’s arms with a knife and offering her to God.  This crazy bitch is actually soon to be a free woman.  Another mother who gets off lightly after killing children, she was found not-guilty by reason of insanity.  Now, she is moved to outpatient care and will be free from any punishment.

Geneviève Lhermitte: Back in 2007, this mother slashed the throats of her five children before trying to commit suicide in the Belgian town of Nivelles. Unfortunately, she wasn’t successful in killing herself as effectively as she took the lives of her offspring. The girls Yasmine,14, Nora, 12, Myriam, 10, Mina, 8, and a boy Mehdi, 3, had all been “killed with a knife” and the mother had called the emergency services after an apparent attempt to kill herself with the same weapon.  She was “depressed.”  On December 19, 2008 Lhermitte was found guilty of the murders by the court and is now facing life imprisonment.

Fed up with poverty and ill health, a woman fed her six children food laced with a pesticide and later consumed the same herself in new Pannapur area of Hapur on Wednesday night.

Saroj Bala: 35, was married to a truck driver who was knee-deep in debt. She poisoned all 6 of her children. The three children identified by the police are Dolly, 14, Jyoti, 10, and Sanjeev, 9; the names of the three other children could not be ascertained. In a recovered suicide note, she has blamed herself for the tragedy.  The lack of blaming someone else or something else is stunning.  This psycho mom actually blamed herself and managed to succeed in taking her own life.  Among the six children, the eldest was a 14-year-old girl and the youngest a three-year-old boy.

————

I have a few thoughts:

• Ever notice how often child-killing mothers are excused for what they do?
• Ever notice how often child-killing mothers get the “female sentencing discount” for their grisly crimes?
• Do you ever wonder if the stats on domestic violence are skewed because mothers who kill their children or husbands or boyfriends are rarely, if ever categorized as “domestic violence?”
• 61% of all child abuse is committed by biological mothers while only 25% is committed by biological fathers according to data available at the DHHS report on nationwide Child Abuse.

If this turns out to be true, it’s truly a shame. However, as what I’m about to roll out unfolds, it opens with what I call classic attention-seeking behavior.  I’ve seen it before.  It’s a surprise email that offers no details. As I maintain my low-contact and focus solely on the children - that is - not asking for details about her alleged illness, she gets a little miffed at my lack of attention to her plight, without ever disclosing what the purported issues are. Though it’s been a couple of weeks since she first brought it to my attention, she still has failed to do little more than express some dramatic sentiment without disclosing what it is that may cost her her life.

While my skepticism and minimal level of concern may seem heartless to some, you might understand from where my heaping dose of skepticism is rooted. This is another one of those “common themes” I’ve seen through my having made acquaintances of some dealing with high-conflict ex-spouses, particularly those suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder or at least suspected of having BPD.

It was a dark, stormy night… I had an upcoming business matter that would be taking me out of town during my custody time. So, in keeping with the right-of-first-refusal clause in our custody order, I gave her the maximum amount of advanced notice to keep the boys those two days or I would have to make other arrangements.

PEW,

I have to be out of town for business on February 9th & 10th. That’s my scheduled week and I can’t get it changed. Would you kindly keep them Sunday night and Monday night that week? I should be able to pick them up Tuesday night, but it wouldn’t be until around bedtime. Otherwise, I could just snag’em from school the following day.

~LM

Then I braced for the reply.

LM,

Well that depends, I have to have surgery later in Feb or early March and I may have to be in the hospital for a few days, I’d like to schedule when I don’t have the kids but it’s really not up to me it’s up to the Dr. so if you would agree to take some extra time then I would be happy to oblige you this time?

~PEW

The request is fine but still rather weird. The implication is that if I don’t agree to take the children when she is laid-up in the hospital, well then she isn’t going to take the kids for the dates I have to be out of town. I would be happy to do that, but it wasn’t necessary to give me the “if/then” reply. I mean, I have no problem making other arrangements. Really. The true purpose of her reply was to dangle the carrot. I’m having surgery… ask me about it. Please. Ask me!

PEW,

By all means. Please give me as much advanced notice on the dates as possible so I can plan accordingly. I have to schedule training for end of Q1 or Q2. The classes already have dates, so I just need to know which one to schedule for.

~LM

I say yes to her request without asking about her condition… whatever it may be. You see, it doesn’t matter to me. I don’t believe it is serious, whatever it is. If it’s anything at all. If it was serious and she was really concerned that it was, well, we would likely have to talk about “what would happen if.” Until she decides to tell me what the problem is and the nature of the procedure - there isn’t much I can do. I’m not asking, as much as I might like to know. I resist the urge.

LM,

I should have the date by next Weds.

~PEW

This was 2-1/2 weeks ago. No disclosure. And that’s okay, really, it is. I just tell myself that if it is something really serious and something that requires planning for some discussion with the children, she’ll let me know. I expect that she’ll let me know.

When an email from her hits my inbox about a week later, I figure it’s the dates. It’s not.

LM,

I’m toying with the idea of taking the kids to Disney and I’m wondering…do you remember how your dad got that great deal on those condos? Wasn’t it through the government or something? I’m asking because maybe my mom could find one of those deals, I remember it was really cheap but you had to be a government employee.

~PEW

Huh? Ask your mother. I’m certainly not going to be asking my father. If she wanted to know, she could call him. Still, nothing on the surgery. My reply was simple, “I don’t remember.” There was no more discussion about the Disney trip.

10-days after the initial surgery comment, I hadn’t heard anything on the dates and I had to make some travel plans. I always try to schedule my business trips while the boys are with her for obvious reasons. So, I email her again…

PEW,

Just checking in to see if you got the dates yet.

~LM

Simple. Low-contact.

LM,

not an exact date yet…I have to have some more tests next week. It will either be the last week in February or first week in March. I thought I was done with tests but apparently not. As soon as I get an exact date I’ll let you know.

~PEW

Fair enough. 3-days later, do I get any details?

LM,

I wanted to talk to you about a few things that I am thinking about. I have this surgery coming up so it makes me wonder what would happen with the kids if something happened to me. (your dream come true) I would hope you wouldn’t move them to [Your Home State] especially since they are doing so well at [Elementary School]. I have to check on my life insurance but I think you are still the beneficiary, but I am going to make a will. It would be nice if you kept my house and just had the boys stay put. If you would agree to that, I would leave everything to you.

It would also be nice if you and my family would make amends so that the kids could continue their relationship with them. Even though you hate them.

and it would be nice if you got rid of all the nasty paperwork from our divorce…which I am in the process of shredding. So that the kids never read how terrible we were to each other.

Obviously I will have no control over anything if I’m dead….but I would like to feel better about what would happen to the kids. I don’t feel good about it at all right now because we don’t even speak to each other.

~PEW

She ramps up the drama, makes the most bizarre requests given our history, and still doesn’t disclose what this life-threatening situation is. Attention-seeking behavior.

My dream-come-true isn’t her demise, hard as that may seem to believe. My ultimate dream is that she recognize her issues, get help, get healthy, and be a normal person who can do a better job of helping to guide our children into adulthood. Of course, she’ll never realize that. The above email represents her efforts to try and control me from the grave. I mean, the control issues don’t even stop with the death of people like her. She’ll even try to do it from the great beyond!

Some thoughts:

• I better be the beneficiary on your life insurance, assuming you’ve even been paying the premiums. It’s a requirement of our court order. We are both to carry $150,000 policies with the other as a beneficiary. Not sure I understand that the court has that authority, but they did make it part of the final order.
• How terrible we were “to each other.”  Is that right?
• Keep her house? With those neighbors? The house that was almost foreclosed on and has Lord-only-knows what kind of cockamamie mortgage or other liens it has on it.
• She would leave everything to me? Everything what? MORE debt? Her crazy-assed sister who apparently can’t take care of herself? What’s this “everything” she speaks of?
• Destroy all of the nastiness? AH! Now we’re getting down to her true motivation. Perhaps she’s realizing that the children are getting older, more intelligent, and more inquisitive about things. Perhaps.
• *I* have to make amends with *her* family?!?!? Really? I’ve done NOTHING to her family. Nothing. Not one single thing. During our relationship, I went well above and beyond the call of duty to help them out in many ways, particularly two of her siblings (including Psycho SIL). If anything, most everyone in that entire family owes me and mine some serious “amendsing.”

No reply. 3-days later I get…

LM,

Great. I wanted to say thanks for responding to my email about trying to figure things out in case I DIE. I’ll just do what I think is best I guess, since I’m not going to get any direction or counsel from you. Thanks

~PEW

Direction or counsel from me? The guy who systematically abused you and the children? Who made your life a living hell? Who is a homosexual asshole impotent faggot who abused drugs and alcohol and is a sociopath (and whatever else her and her family have tossed in my direction)?

Here’s some direction and counsel - hurry it the hell up. I’ll start digging the hole.

Okay, that was rotten, but how can anyone take something like this seriously? Yesterday, I asked again about the dates since her alleged “testing” was to have taken place last week. I have to schedule this training and I’m up against the deadline for doing so. I emailed asking simply, Any update on the dates?

LM,

Just do what you have to do. I had to postpone my appts last week because of the snow. So that postpones eveyrthing. If there is a conflict my family will help out.

~PEW

It snowed one day and it wasn’t a big one (though the kids did have off). Of course, still no disclosure regarding this terrible malady that has befallen her.

If something is seriously wrong with her, I will feel bad. I will feel bad for the children. I’m not a cruel and heartless individual. If anything, my attitude is born of my knowledge and experiences, not only of the psycho ex-wife, but countless eerily similar stories by people dealing with exes just like her. The pending doom and gloom and death stories followed by stories of miraculous recoveries are not uncommon in this arena, I assure you.

So, when I find out, if ever, you’ll find out. I didn’t think she’d go three weeks without telling me, even without me asking her about her alleged affliction. The force is strong with this one…

In Part I, I discussed how I chose to handle the situation with Fido dying in consideration of the boys’ profound love for our dogs.

About 10-years ago a discussion regarding the death of a family pet came up on a private message board I’d frequent. One reply in particular struck a chord with me and I kept it. It honestly influenced how I chose to handle the situation with the boys. I saved it because we had two dogs at the time and I knew that the days would come where they would no longer be a part of our family, and the children would be fairly young when it happened.

I understand that there are innumerable ways to handle the topic of death with children. I just happened to really like the way this guy explained it and I’ve saved it in my email since about 1999.

I’ve got a three year old, and we speak with him honestly about death (his great-grandfather was the first opportunity).I don’t think there’s much to be gained by sugar-coating it or making up some nice story — for one thing, the kid probably won’t fully understand your explanation in any case. Death is a truth, and it’s nothing to be afraid of. Neither is sadness.

I’d tell them, “Guys, Mitsy died. She was very sick, and she got so bad that her body stopped working. It happens to everybody eventually. Sometimes it’s because you get too sick, sometimes because you have a bad accident, and sometimes it’s just because your body wears out. We make you wash your hands so you don’t get sick, and we make sure you don’t step into the street so you don’t have an accident, but everybody dies. So it’s important to enjoy being alive!”

Or whatever. One thing I would avoid is the whole “sleeping” comparison, because then the kid might be afraid to sleep for fear of not waking up.

That’s just my take. I think you get in trouble when you hide things. Sometimes they’re too abstract or complex to explain properly, but just try to put them into terms the kid can understand.

I’d like to know your thoughts on the subject… whether you’ve ever considered it before or even if you’re just pondering it at this very moment because I asked. I’m sure others might benefit in some way from your feedback as I did from that guy’s thoughts.

In Part I of this two-part topic, I’ll share the specifics regarding how I handled the situation surrounding Fido’s death with and for the children.  Since it occurred the day before I left on a business trip which last a full week, I had an awful lot of time to think about it.  I chose not to call, discuss, or forewarn the PEW for good reasons which I think paid dividends in the end (despite her ongoing obsession with it).  My relationship with DW was growing through the fall of 2004 and between visits, messaging, emails, and phone calls, we certainly shared a lot.  This was no exception.  I shared with her the details of my plans to discuss the matter with the children (they were 6 and 3 at that point) and how I planned to celebrate Fido’s life rather than dwell on his death.

My plans are working out better than expected.  With the boys, that is.  My imaginative plans have worked in stifling any length crying jags (not that they would be a problem) but as I told you, I wanted them to view this as a “positive moment” in Fido’s life even if it isn’t the greatest moment in ours.

Oddly enough… when they came in the house, I sat them both on the couch and told them that I had to share some sad news with them and they needed to listen to what I had to tell them.  S1 says, “Fido died?!?!”  *yikes*

I told him yes and of course, he became really upset… S2 followed suit when he saw S1 start to cry saying, “…then we have NO dogs now?  S1 - we have no dogs now!”

So, after lots of hugs and squeezes, we did a couple of things and I told them that we would do an “honor walk” for Fido, which they loved!  *whew*

1st - prayers.  We sat in a circle and said prayers, S1, as usual with nice words with loads of “I loved Fidos” sprinkled in.  I said lots of nice words about how great he was and how much he loved the boys and the boys loved him.  And then S2 said, “Can we pray about Alpo?”

2nd - We spent a little while “remembering Fido.”  And I told them to think of things that Fido did to make them smile, laugh, or otherwise happy.  (This was a move to get the tears and sadness away and start to think of happy things about why Fido was so awesome to them.)  It worked well.  And we talked about rolling over, and the boys going in his cage with him when they were smaller… how many times he managed to escape the house and run away, even in the rain… (of course, they laughed how I would have to go get him).

3rd - After lunch we did our “Honor Walk.”  S2 carried the leash and S1 carried the collar and we just went for a long walk around the block, the route we normally took with Fido, and just kept talking about him.  All of the dogs (in yards) we encountered along the way, they told them that their “buddy” Fido died.  If the dogs were barking, S1 would ask me if they were upset that Fido was gone and I told him, “probably, he was one of the neighborhood buddy dogs.”

Of course, I got the expected “can we get another dog” questions and I simply told them it was too soon because there were a lot of other important things that had to be sorted out before we could make a decision like that.  I told them that we would need to “wait a while” before making that choice again and it wouldn’t likely be soon.  They SEEMED to understand, I guess.

So, all-in-all, it seems my “plans” have worked.  They’ve been really good and not really dwelling on it (beyond normal) all day.  It helps that we played outside and then went to the park for a bit.  I still got a pit in my gut because S1 LOVES DOGS.  And dogs love him, it’s scary.  But I can’t do dogs right now.  I just don’t have the desire to make the effort to care for another dog.  I have my hands full with my children and this wonderful woman I have… and it’s about as much love as my heart and soul can handle!!!

Thanks for the good wishes, too… they helped!

That’s a very specific situation, the death of Fido, and how I managed the situation to make it a meaningful experience for the boys.  This was not new to them as our other dog, Alpo, had died a couple of years earlier of old age.  He passed in front of our very eyes as we sat around petting him, praying for a speedy and uninterrupted trip to “doggie heaven.”  They were very in tuned to that situation, too, even though they were only 4 and 2 at the time.  It wasn’t traumatic or anything like that.  They were and still are - amazing.

In Part 2 - I’ll share an email I received from a friend on the topic of dealing with the subject of death with children that I thought was pretty amazing, and have saved for a long time.

In addition to it fitting the timeline of 2004, the reason I posted about “Fido’s” ultimate demise and the circumstances that led to that difficult decision, PEW sent me a series of bizarre text messages two nights ago.  Except when it first happened, I don’t discuss it with her, what was done was done and it’s long ago history… I don’t reply to her inquiries and comments about Fido’s passing.

Still… it hasn’t stopped her obsession with bringing it up.

A simple search of my email account yielded no fewer than 14 separate email hits regarding this sad event in the last 4 years.  14.  This doesn’t include any phone discussions, messages or voice mails.  Let’s say that it has come up conservatively 20-times since the fall of 2004.  In almost every case, the mentions appear at the most bizarre times, which in and of itself is not unusual.  It’s her usual modus operandi.  Shotgun discussion.  One-way shotgun discussion.  Just spray the object of your diatribes with anything and everything that pops into your head.  PEW also injected her knack for the dramatic flair, often referring to it as me:

1. Murdering the dog.
2. Killing the dog.
3. Snuffing the life out of the dog.

Good grief, grow up, girl.

It had been a while, but out-of-the-blue, it returned on November 10th, 2008 - more than 4-years after the event.  I don’t need a DeLorean to go back to the future - I have a PEW for that!  I responded to none of the following text messages that started at 10:40PM.

10:40PM Text Message from PEW:

U killed Fido on my birthday why did u do that i would have had [my brother] take him?

10:44PM Text Message from PEW:

U didnt even give me a chance to do anything about it

10:47PM Text Message from PEW:

Say something!

10:59PM Text Message from PEW:

U never should have done that without talking to me

11:10PM Text Message from PEW:

This is the major reason i worry so much Fido was so cute that i cant imagine what was in ur mind

Frankly, I was taken rather off guard by the sudden, strange text messages, particularly at that hour when I had just retired for the evening. She was either completely annihilated on booze or was having a momentary break from reality.  Or, should I say, a more glaring break from her usual break from reality which seems to be a perpetual break in reality.

I was also relieved that the children were with me at that moment, safely tucked away in their beds.

At the drop off, I had intended to say something and was laughing to myself the whole ride there. However, her psycho sister being there and the kids lingering about gave me more than enough reason to hold my tongue. What did I want to say?

Hey, PEW… did you make it back from 2004 all right last night?