Mental Illness, Evil, and Blame

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

11. A trial that's going on right now

in western WI raises some of these issues. The defendant came to his ex-wife's house with her permission to visit their three young daughters. While she was away at work he cut their throats, then called her up to tell her "I've killed the kids." He has raised the insanity defense (would a sane person murder their own children?), and he has been previously diagnosed as suffering from severe depression. He's also threatened to kill the ex-wife and/or the children in the past, but apparently nobody took him seriously, and the ex-wife seemed to think he'd been getting better recently. The prosecution claims he's not insane, just evil; and that he killed the children in order to make the ex-wife suffer as much as possible for leaving him. I'd be surprised if the jury found him insane because there are a lot of elements of premeditation and planning - but what sane person kills their own kids? Yet the legal standard is much different from the medical standard. It's an awful case.

http://www.startribune.com/local/east/201067811.html