Читать книгу Parents Who Kill - Shocking True Stories of The World's Most Evil Parents - Carol Anne Davis - Страница 25

Twenty-four-year-old Sheryl and her husband were elated when she gave birth to their first son in March 1987. The couple returned to their home in Anaheim, California with their new baby, Michael, only to find that colic made him cry for up to 18 hours a day. Sheryl took him to the doctor several times but was told that he was healthy, that he would grow out of the almost-intolerable wailing. (Most babies only suffer from colic for the first three months of life.) Meanwhile, she was so exhausted that she couldn’t eat or sleep.

After a month of this mayhem, the former beautician became so confused that, according to her later testimony, she began to hear voices telling her that Michael was in pain and that she should put him out of his misery. Afraid for what she would do, she tried to return him to the hospital where she’d given birth, but they turned her away.

On 29 April, whilst in the grip of a full-blown psychosis, she decided to kill the child for his own good. She threw the six-week-old infant in front of a moving car, but the driver managed to swerve and miss him. After picking the baby up, the 24-year-old took him into her garage where she grabbed a blunt object and hit him over the head. He was still alive as she put him behind one of the rear tires of her vehicle and backed over him. The petite blonde then disposed of his body in a nearby trash can.

When her husband got home from work, she appeared dazed and told him that Michael had been kidnapped. At the police station, she elaborated on her story telling them that her son had been taken by a black object with orange hair and white gloves who wasn’t really a person. Shortly afterwards, the psychosis passed and she became deeply distraught and made a full confession. At her trial in November 1988, she pleaded insanity.

There’s little doubt that she’d suffered a full-blown psychotic episode and had been deranged at the time of the murder, yet the jury rejected her plea and found her guilty of second degree murder. A sympathetic Superior Court Judge, Robert Fitzgerald, rejected the jury’s verdict and found the unfortunate young woman not guilty by reason of insanity.