MATT A

Updated:2007-05-29 17:45:29
Mom and Kids Found Hanging, One Child Lives

By ANGELA K. BROWN
AP
HUDSON OAKS, Texas (May 29) - A young mother who may have been depressed apparently hanged three of her small daughters and herself in a closet using pieces of clothing and sashes, authorities said Tuesday.



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A fourth child, an 8-month-old daughter, was also found dangling in the closet but was rescued.

"It's horrendous. That's all I can say," Parker County Sheriff Larry Fowler said. Authorities did not immediately identify the dead children, ages 5, 3 and 2.

After the 23-year-old woman failed to show up for work, her sister, who lived nearby, forced her way into the locked residence in the Oak Hills mobile home park, about 25 miles west of Fort Worth in this rural community of 1,600 people.

The sheriff said the sister rescued the infant when she realized the baby girl was still alive. The infant was listed in good condition Tuesday at a Fort Worth hospital, Fowler said.


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The sheriff said the hangings appeared to be murder-suicide because the trailer's doors were locked from the inside and a relative said the woman had been depressed.

The young mother and her girls were last seen alive Monday evening, he said. She was believed to be separated from her husband.

"I just got a big kick out of watching the kids play over there on her porch, and today it's sad, very sad," said neighbor Joyce Harris.

Texas has seen a number of child killings by mothers in recent years.


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Less than five years earlier, another Hudson Oaks family was torn apart when Dee Etta Perez, 39, shot her three children, ages 4, 9 and 10, before killing herself.

Andrea Yates drowned her five children in the family's Houston bathtub in 2001. In 2003, Deanna Laney beat her two young sons to death with stones in East Texas, and Lisa Ann Diaz drowned her daughters in a Plano bathtub. Dena Schlosser fatally severed her 10-month-old daughter's arms with a kitchen knife in 2004.

All four of those women were found innocent by reason of insanity. Yates initially was convicted of capital murder, but that verdict was overturned on appeal.

Associated Press writer Jamie Stengle in Dallas contributed to this report.

MATT A

I saw this on the news earlier today and figured someone killed them. I had no idea at that time it was the mother.

engfant

It's all the ***'S FAULT!!!!!

MATT A

Whos?

engfant

Is G A Y a "bad word"???

billable

Probably will be blamed on the mother tanning before it's all over.

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MATT A

I don't think so the programmer updated the site and it has some flaws but what does that have to do with the mother hanging her children?

engfant

Clearly the ***'s are bad for families right? This is a WOMAN who is in a Heterosexual relationship so it can't be she's just unfit.

Must be either the Homosexuals or the sun. 23 year old should have NO PROBLEM raising 3 kids.....right.

Neon Beach

Eeeeeeeeeeep

Brandy1

It's very sad what stress can do to a person. Or insanity. Whichever. Why don't these people ask for help? And if they did, why didn't anybody respond? I guess we will never know now. I was friends with a lady for 7 years. Well, she worked for me at my newspaper, then she worked with me there after I sold it. She had an affair and then killed her baby in a bathroom stall at a motorcycle rally. She is on trial now. The sad thing is I see her at the grocery store all the time. Walking around and people shouting at her, 'we support you'. They need to speak for themselves. I don't support her. She was a sane reasonable person, she knew better.

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