Published: August 03, 2007 08:42 am         

Many factors involved when mothers kill

I don' t know what happened in Ocean City, but my instincts tell me this case goes much deeper than we realize. And as a member of the media, I think it' s time we understand the underlying issues, so we can provide better coverage of these cases.

Yes, mothers do kill their children - just like men do. But the reason they do so is often misunderstood. I believe the key to preventing this problem is to realize the undercurrents that often lead mothers to kill. Only then will articles like the current one involving Christy Freeman stop taking up as much space in the headlines.

On Tuesday the world woke up to this story, which involves alleged murder and four dead fetuses. As a woman, I think the idea of mothers who murder is about as difficult a concept for women to grasp, as is rape, for the men who find that crime equally incomprehensible. And yet...

Last year as I read from my (as yet unpublished) memoir, a packed house at West Virginia University learned what led me to sit on my bathroom floor and plan to commit suicide, taking my children with me. They learned that I hated how I became pregnant, what he did to me - but I loved my children so much that I fought to bring them up in a world that at the time had little to offer but my love. And at the end of the day, my children saved my life. But for a brief moment in time, while I was carrying my fourth and final child, I nearly drowned in the pain from the domestic violence and rapes that I had been living with from the age of 13.

After sharing my story with medical and law students at WVU last year, a sexual assault expert invited me to join a panel of speakers for the Silent Witness program in October. As I prepared my speech, I decided to pull out all stops - to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I knew the best way to do that was to read an excerpt from my book. As I did so, you quite literally could have heard a pin drop. For the truth, you see, involves mathematics - a subject I've never excelled in, but which in this case is so simple even I can calculate it.

So let' s do the math: I was just 16 when I became pregnant in March 1980, to a baby born prematurely that December. My second pregnancy occurred in July 1981, that baby was born in May 1982. In October 1982 I became pregnant again, and my third child was born in July 1983. Finally, I became pregnant in June 1984, and gave birth to a fourth baby in April 1985. By then, I was 21.

Six weeks later, I did something I hated. I was sterilized. Although the decision was mine, I really had no choice. After sobbing on the bathroom floor only a few months earlier, I knew if I became pregnant one more time, I wouldn't be around to see my children grow up. And the chances were quite good that they wouldn't live to grow up. I planned it - but I never acted on it, and that, in itself, is a miracle. My personal belief system, which includes faith and accountability and striving to overcome the negative around me, prevented me from acting out of pain. Maybe I was just really strong. Or maybe I wasn't that ill. This matters, you see, for until we figure this thing out, more children will die at their mother' s hands.

So let' s look at Freeman. She already has four children, presumably by the same father. And then she has another four. That' s eight - and she' s only 37. Ocean City Police Department Spokesman Barry Neeb told me Freeman' s four living children include a son, 12; a set of twins, 15; and a daughter, 17. While there' s certainly nothing wrong with it, that' s a lot of children for anyone in our society, in this day and age. After my own experience, and in addition to my journalism work, I have spent much of the last 22 years studying these issues, and the statistics point to some troubling problems.

Such as, what if Freeman didn't conceive those babies through consensual sex? (Rape-related pregnancy is closely linked with domestic violence, and 32,000 such pregnancies occur annually, according to the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.) What if she couldn't afford to feed, or clothe, all those children? (A neighbor was quoted as saying Freeman' s son went outside without a winter coat, and was often dirty.) Or, what if she was a victim of domestic violence? (Infanticide expert Neil Websdale told me there' s some form of DV in the home in about half of the cases where children' s deaths occur while living with adults.)

According to the Maryland Judiciary Case Search site, boyfriend Raymond Godman and the father of Freeman' s four living children, has no history of criminal charges for domestic violence or abuse. And the only criminal charges against Freeman involve letting her dog run loose. But just because no domestic was reported, doesn't mean it didn't happen. That' s because victims rarely come forward. And even if it didn't, childhood abuse could be a contributing factor.

Freeman's case should come as a wake-up call. My children survived. High-functioning adults, they even thrive most of the time. But they are the exception. For other children, the outlook is not so bright. For four of Freeman' s children, there is no outlook - and now her other four will live in the dark shadow of this story for the rest of their lives.