This has to be one of the saddest cases I have ever read. Heart-breaking for the family involved. I also found a few comments in the thread a bit disturbing on how people view people with mental illness. Even though she was having psychotic episodes, I do believe that she had the capacity to think through plans, at least to some extent. She isn't "crazy," she is experiencing a very specific diagnosis. She may not have even had a plan at all, but after-the-fact of pulling something together it feels like from the outside-looking-in that she did. For instance, imagine that you are convinced your child is going to die if you don't do something to save them. You take off and hide the child in a location that you believe is safe (another websleuther mentioned that hiding underwater could be a place of safety for someone with this type of diagnosis). Feeling relieved you go on your way and then realize you have to protect another one of your children. You take them and hide them as well. For some reason, I think the places she hid them would be similar to her own hiding place, but if that was the case I guess they would be located by now. Anyways after hiding them, she hid herself. She probably saw the poster which made her more worried and frightened for her children and herself. I wonder if she could have gone back to check on them? I don't know what it is like to experience this diagnosis as some of you have bravely shared your experience, but from my imagination it isn't anything like we imagine. I am just thinking of past cases where it looked planned and later we found out it was just how the pieces ended up lying. She may still feel like she is protecting them by not releasing the location. I doubt this was a parent gets angry, snaps, and kills their child type of a situation, especially because it was two children at two different times. It really does sound diagnosis related. I also believe that cases like this are rare enough that there isn't the need to take children away from parents just because they have a mental illness. I think it just sounds scary that things can happen like this, but at the same time there are parents without mental disorders that do snap and kill their children. Anyways I wish the best to the family members on healing and trying to find answers. It is tragic all around. Btw - this is just my opinion. I have no real idea about anything, but these are my honest thoughts as I read the thread. I skipped part of the thread so I'm sorry if I am just repeating the same ol' thing.
:couch: