A woman who had just been involved in a domestic dispute loaded her four children into a minivan Tuesday night before letting one out and driving the rest of them into the Hudson River, firefighters said. The woman and three young children were killed.
The 10-year-old boy who had been let out of the minivan ran to a nearby fire station and alerted firefighters, Chief Michael Vatter said. The boy told firefighters his mother had driven off a boat ramp in Newburgh, about 100 kilometres north of New York City, and into the murky water of the river, Chief Vatter said. Inside with her were the boy's siblings: two boys, ages 5 and 2, and an 11-month-old girl.
Firefighters and police officers responded with boats. Divers searched for the minivan for about an hour before finding it submerged in 3 mtres of water about 25 metres offshore. They used a heavy-duty tow truck to pull it up the boat ramp and onto land.
Everyone inside was dead, Chief Vatter said.
The woman lived about six blocks from where she and her children perished, he said. Their names have not been released.
The domestic altercation occurred about 10 minutes before the woman drove into the river, said Chief Vatter, who didn't have any more information on it.
Newburgh, which has about 30,000 residents, sits on the western shore of the part of the river that runs south through New York state and eventually splits New York and New Jersey.
The town is about 50 kilometres north of suburban Westchester County, where a mother driving a van the wrong way on a highway in 2009 slammed into an SUV, killing eight people.
The woman blamed in that crash, Diane Schuler, was drunk and high on marijuana, an autopsy found. Ms. Schuler died, along with her daughter, three nieces and three men in the other vehicle. Ms. Schuler's 5-year-old son survived.
The crash – and how Ms. Schuler could race against highway traffic with a vanload of frightened children – intrigued the nation and was featured on TV talk shows for months.
Her husband, Daniel Schuler, disputed the autopsy results and paid for more studies of her remains in hopes of proving she was not intoxicated. The results have not been made public.
Commentary by the OttawaMensCentre.com
She should ask to have her trial heard by the Ontario Court of Appeal or the
Nova Scotia Court of Appeal where she can give "she said" the uncorroborated
allegation that murdered her children because she was the victim of domestic
abuse and that her husband's abuse justified her killing her own children to
protect her from him.
That's the kind of logic that has become "legal logic" with our zealous feminist
courts.
There are few facts to go on.
The most important fact is she let the 10 year old out before driving in? Why?
Well first, the 10 year old might have been able to rescue the other children,
she also wanted the father to get the bad news and to drown the kids in such a
way that would have the most shock value.
Not only women do this sort of murder.
In 2010, Robert Farqharson told the court in tears that "he blacked out from a
coughing fit and crashed" his car with 3 kids, Jai 10, Tyler 7, and Bailey 2
into a 7 meter deep dam.
He was so blacked out that he turned off the ignition and the lights that he
needed to drive across a field in the dark to find the dam.
It was also after he threatened to kill his kids on father's day by driving them
into a pond.
When parents murder their kids, its generally a mental health problem and or a
severe personality disorder that no one, wanted to see.
The problem is, that societies refusal to deal with the problems of mental
illness and personality disorders mean we end up with members of the Judiciary
who are NOT screened for mental health or personality disorders where they
commit judicial atrocities by flagrantly abusing their judicial authorities for
their own reasons of hatred and revenge.
In Ottawa, the most well know "worst of the worst", is Justice Allan Sheffield
whose psychopathic personality makes him one of the least welcome members of the
judiciary in any setting.
While Canada fails to deal with the problems of mental health, it will continue
to cost Canada untold hundreds of billions of dollars that could otherwise be
spent on health, parenting and education.
www.OttawaMensCentre.com