TX - Margaret Schlosser, 10 mos, arms cut off, dies, Plano, 22 Nov 2004 *Insanity*

Jeana (DP)

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Plano baby dies after arms cut off

02:42 PM CST on Monday, November 22, 2004


By JENNIFER EMILY / The Dallas Morning News



A 1-month-old baby died Monday after her arms were cut off, reportedly by her mother, Plano police said.

A 35-year-old woman called 911 Monday morning to report that she had cut off her infant’s arms. When authorities arrived, they found a 1-month-old child with her arms severed. Police said the woman was waiting calmly, with blood on her clothing, when they arrived.

The baby was taken to nearby Plano Medical Center about noon, where she died, Plano police spokesman Carl Duke said.

The name of the woman was not immediately released. Police were questioning her Monday afternoon.

Authorities said other family members, including two school-age children, live in the unit at the Fairway Apartments, just north of Plano Medical Center on Coit Road. However, none were in the apartment at the time.

www.dallasnews.com

(I don't even know what to say).
 
I don't know what to say either :(

Did you see my thread on the woman who treated her 2 year olds gun shot wound with Tylenol and a nap?
 
I'll bet you next year's salary that she's going to come up with post partum depression/psychosis.
 
probably..

poor little baby, I still don't know what to say :(
 
I think I am going to be :sick:

How could she do that? :banghead:

You are right Jeana! They will say it was Post-partum depression. :(
 
OMG, that made me instantly sick...That poor baby, I will never understand how someone could do this, let alone her mother. I feel ill now, shouldn't have read this, so sad.....
 
The hell and pain that baby went through makes me :silenced:

I can't even think straight on this one. I hope someone gets ahold of her in jail. Sorry, I can't help but feel this way.
 
To consciously take a baby's arm and sever it, then to proceed, presumably without reflection and remorse, to severe the other arm. Something more sinister is at play here, something so awful it pains to even contemplate.

There must be a physiological and/or psychological explanation for a mother to suddenly snap like that, but to me it suggests that the post-partum depression was merely the precursor that somehow triggered a deeper psychosis that had hitherto lain dormant.

I would be interested to know of past violent behaviour as a child and/or if she has been a victim of abuse or violence -- the memories of which may have been repressed up to this point.
 
First Andrea Yates, now this...

This has got to be one of the most gruesome things I've ever heard about. I usually have a pretty strong stomach, but reading about this made me want to toss my Cheerios.

That poor baby.
 
I just heard the Mother has a history of post partum depression/mental illness (so just like with Andrea Yates Im left asking "WHY HAVE ANOTHER CHILD???").
I also heard the 911 call.Clearly the woman was in some sort of mental state as she had such a flat effect.
This is a VERY ill woman who ,like Andrea,has likely been failed by family and the medical community.She should be held accountable for her actions but I do belive she is/was suffering from psychosis.
 
Reports of prior investigations due to episodes of PPD in the past.
The police book-in photo is really creepy. The maniac mother is smiling.
 
So, the baby was 10 months old, not one month. Somehow that makes it worse. I didn't think it could get worse.

If her insanity defense doesn't work out, they could ask for the death penalty. Before Andrea Yates, I didn't think anyone that sick could actually be found competent, but now I'm not so sure. Could go either way.

Dasgal, that smile is very creepy.
 
I was away yesterday. I just read this OMG OMG OMG this poor child. HOW DON'T women know when to get help. I KNEW when I was having PPD after one of my children. NOTHING was right about me. How do they not know? How do they not go to a police station; hospital; whatever and hand over the child and say there's something wrong - please keep my baby until I figure it out.

MY GOODNESS! :(
 
Casshew said:
I don't know what to say either

I know what to say here...an eye for an eye. This made me sick hearing this this morning. Cut the mothers arms off with the dullest possible blade you can find and leave her there bleeding to death. It's just incomprehensible why anyone would do such a thing (and all the other horrible stories we hear about). :(
 
Sassy, they are charging her with a capital crime, so the death penalty is a consideration if she's mentally capable of being tried for this murder. Here's an update from our local paper:

Plano mother charged with murder
Schlosser battled postpartum depression after the baby's birth

PLANO – Covered in her daughter's blood, Dena Schlosser sat in the living room of her apartment listening to the hymn "He Touched Me."

Dena Audre Schlosser "Shackled by a heavy burden/'Neath a load of guilt and shame/Then the hand of Jesus touched me/And now I am no longer the same," the beginning of the hymn goes.

Ms. Schlosser is heard humming along on a 911 recording as she answers a telephone call from an emergency dispatcher about noon Monday.

"I cut her arms off," the 35-year-old said in a quiet voice about her 10-month-old daughter, who later died. She tells him the baby is unconscious and isn't breathing.

Paramedics found the baby in a crib in a bedroom. Her arms were severed. The child died at Medical Center of Plano.

Ms. Schlosser, who was diagnosed with postpartum depression during a Child Protective Services neglect investigation early this year, was charged with capital murder Monday afternoon.

When paramedics arrived, a man's voice can be heard on the 911 tape calmly saying: "Give me the knife now. Give me the knife."

She offered no explanation for her actions to the dispatcher, and police would not comment about why she may have killed the youngest of her three daughters. They also would not discuss whether investigators recovered a knife or other weapon.

"Both arms were completely severed," Plano police spokesman Officer Carl Duke said. "She was not talking when she left here. She was very quiet, subdued."

Plano police said the child's injuries were horrifying.

"I've never had to face anything like this before," Detective Bryan Wood said. "And, frankly, I'd never want to.

"My sympathies go out to the family and to the first responders on the scene."

Ms. Schlosser's husband and two other daughters, ages 6 and 9, lived in the downstairs apartment but were not home at the time. The older daughters, who have been placed in temporary foster homes, were in school.

Ms. Schlosser's husband had called an employee at a child-care facility and asked her to check on his wife as he drove home from work in Arlington, according to the 911 recording. A co-worker of that woman then called 911.

It was not the first time authorities were called to the apartment on Coit Road.

A CPS investigator was sent to Ms. Schlosser's home Jan. 15 after she was seen running down the street, followed by her then-5-year-old daughter, who was on a bicycle. When police and CPS arrived at the scene, the child told them her mother had left her 6-day-old sister alone in the family's apartment. None of the children was injured.

The mother, who was despondent, appeared to be suffering from postpartum depression, said Marissa Gonzales, CPS spokeswoman.

"Mom started walking and running from the apartment," Ms. Gonzales said. "Someone called law enforcement, and she was obviously having some sort of psychotic episode."

Ms. Schlosser was taken to a Collin County hospital, where she was treated for a few days, Ms. Gonzales said. The children were released to their father, who told authorities she had been acting strangely since the birth of the third child Jan. 9.

Once Ms. Schlosser was released from the hospital, she agreed to seek counseling and see a psychiatrist, Ms. Gonzales said.

She kept all of her appointments and at one time had received a prescription for a psychotropic drug. But sometime between January and August, she was taken off the medication, Ms. Gonzales said.

"We had received assurances that Mom was stable from the people who were dealing with her, the professionals," Geoffrey Wool, CPS spokesman in Austin, said of the decision by her doctors to take her off of the medication.

CPS caseworkers continued to visit the family through the spring and summer, the last time on July 29.

"She was doing well," Ms. Gonzales said.

The case was closed Aug. 9 and classified with a finding of "Reason To Believe-Neglectful Supervision."

"At the time we had closed the case, we had been assured she was stabilized and she posed no risk to herself or her children, to the extent that you can predict these things," Mr. Wool said.

The baby's death shocked residents of the apartment complex, which is home to numerous families.

Michael Lujan, 25, who lives in the same building, said he often saw Ms. Schlosser and her children having picnics under the trees near their building. He said she stayed home with the children while her husband worked. Her older daughter often rode her bike.

"I'm in shock," said Mr. Lujan, who has two children. "She seemed sweet to me ... just like any other mother. She was loving and tended to their needs."

Others struggled to understand how such a tragedy could happen.

"What would drive a person to do that?" said resident Jacob Hopland, 22. "I know kids are hard to handle, but you have to step up and be a good parent."

Officer Duke said Ms. Schlosser was not talking with officers at the police station about what happened. No previous criminal record could be found.

Mood problems are common up to two week after giving birth, said J. Douglas Crowder, clinical associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.

"That's the so-called baby blues," Dr. Crowder said. "When it goes longer than that, you need to be concerned."

Postpartum symptoms are the same as depression, Dr. Crowder said. Mood swings, loss of appetite, insomnia, fatigue and thoughts of suicide are typical. At the worst psychotic level, mothers may hallucinate or conclude that their children are hopelessly flawed and better off dead.

But he said violence toward children is uncommon in postpartum cases.

Dr. Crowder said a law that went into effect last year requires doctors to warn parents of the effects of postpartum depression.

The law was precipitated by the case of Andrea Yates of Houston, who was sentenced to life in prison in 2002 for drowning three of her five children, he said. It is meant to prompt families to seek medical help for women who display symptoms.

www.dallasnews.com

check this link for the 911 call and the video of police at the apartment.
 
Thanks Jeana. I am from that area....did she live right there off Coit by the hospital do you know? While I try to be understanding and openminded, and I do think post partum depression is real, I just have a hard time with cases to this extreme. The visual is just haunting and I just don't have any sympathy at all for the woman who gave birth to this poor baby girl. String her up from the nearest tree. JMO :D
 
Sassygerl said:
Thanks Jeana. I am from that area....did she live right there off Coit by the hospital do you know? While I try to be understanding and openminded, and I do think post partum depression is real, I just have a hard time with cases to this extreme. The visual is just haunting and I just don't have any sympathy at all for the woman who gave birth to this poor baby girl. String her up from the nearest tree. JMO :D


You and I can't be more than a 30 minute drive from one another!! I think that you've got the area right. Its Collin County, but I'm not sure they'll try her there. If she's fit for trial, they may do it in Dallas (which would be good).
 

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