Why Mothers Kill

One of the few crimes that shocks society as a whole is the murdering of one's own children by their mothers. In order to prevent maternal filicide, infanticide, and neonaticide, author Geoffrey R. McKee presents more than a dozen case studies to help professionals understand and stop these horrific events from occurring. Among the several cases included is the study of Susan Smith and the widely publicized murder of her young children.

Dr. McKee applies current research findings to analyze, explain, and suggest practical interventions to alter the personal, familial, and situational circumstances that may influence some mothers to kill. With an emphasis on prevention, he offers specific strategies that might have been employed at various "risk intervention points" (RIPs) occurring before the child's death.

Why Mothers Kill describes the scientific study of dangerous behavior and highlights clinical and everyday situations in which risk analysis is commonplace. It introduces essential terms such as target behaviors, signal behaviors, risk factors, and protective factors. Additionally, the author presents the “Maternal Filicide Risk Matrix,” which was developed to help mental health and medical professionals determine the risk and protective factors that lead mothers to kill their children. The model discusses pregnancy, pregnancy and delivery, early postpartum, late postpartum, and postinfancy.

Strategies discuss:
• primary risk prevention programs
• secondary risk prevention programs
• family versus community bases risk prevention methods

Case chapters begin with a narrative of the mother's ideas and emotions before, during, and/or after her homicidal act. Important events from the mother's personal history before and after delivery identify experiences that helped shape her unique perceptions, attitudes, beliefs, and personality. Each story ends with an epilogue describing the legal resolution of the mother's case. It also reviews categories of the detached mother, retaliatory mother, psychopathic mother, abusive/neglectful mother, and psychotic/depressed mother.

Areas cover the difficulties in establishing true incidence rates of discovering bodies of abandoned children, determining the causes of children's deaths, and prosecutorial decisions about whether to bring cases to trial.

Why Mothers Kill is an important tool that can help provide an understanding, as well as strategies in the prevention of a mother killing of a child. Students and mental health professionals will find this a unique and important book.