Mother Ruled Cured Of Insanity
By Divorce Help Center
Oct. 13, 2011 2:01p
Court Allows Stepsons To Remain With Woman Who Murdered Children
In a court ruling that has generated nation-wide controversy, a divorce court moved to block the attempts of a mother to remove her sons from their father's custody after he remarried his first wife, who shot and killed their daughters twenty years previously.
The sordid tail goes back to 1991, when the marine pilot and his first wife, K, were living in Orange County, CA. While her husband was away on his tour of duty, K seemed outwardly to be a model housewife, pillar of the community, and devoted mother. All this changed, however, when one night she took her husband's pistol and killed her daughters, aged four and eight, as they slept in their beds.
Blaming a poor reaction to the prescription anti-depressants she was taking, K was acquitted in court by reason of temporary insanity and sent to a mental institution for treatment. Her husband eventually remarried, fathering two boys, before splitting from his second wife in 2004.
Mother Shocked To Learn Identity of New Wife
As per the child custody agreement arrangement, the two boys split their time between their father's home in Seattle and their mother's in Silverton, OR.
Shortly after the divorce, the mother, T, became suspicious that her husband had resumed relations with his first wife. She had recently been released from more than a decade of psychiatric care, her doctors declaring that she had been cured and was no threat to anyone. Confronting her husband, he admitted that he had re-married K, but that they were already separated and seeking a divorce.
The divorce was never completed, however, and K soon moved back in with her husband, maintaining what she and the father claim is a loving relationship with her stepchildren. After hiring a private investigator to look into the matter, T discovered the truth and immediately filed for a change in the custody agreement to remove the boys from the home.
At the hearing in August, the court decided to allow the custody agreement to continue unchanged. They argued that the boys had been living with their stepmother for years without incident, and that in light of her doctors' opinions, she did not present a threat to either of the teens.
After this decision, T has filed for appeal, which will begin later in August.
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