Parents Behaving Badly

Mother charged after toddlers killed in fire:

Mother of dead children had been charged before:

This is how bad it is for me working at ‘The Sweatshop’. I live in Charlotte but since I work second shift I had to hear this story from someone who doesn’t even live around here. At least I don’t think she does. If she does Jade and myself will have to get together for a beer.

Anyway, 26-year-old Orgal Paulette Opata of Charlotte, NC left four of her children home alone. No word yet on what the reason was she left the house but that’s neither here nor there. What is here and there is that the kids were left home alone with a kerosene heater.

I’ve never been a big fan of kerosene heaters. Personally I think their two dangerous to keep in a house. I just think they’re bombs waiting to go off but that’s just me. However even if I did have one in the house you would have to be potentially brain dead to leave one running in the house with four unsupervised children.

Neighbors were able to save two of the children but Josiah Hawthorne, 2, and Gabriel Hawthorne, 14 months, were unable to be rescued.

Opata has been charged with murder and was previously charged back in October for leaving kids home alone.

And as a public service here are some tips on using a kerosene heater safely.

You’ll notice it says do not let children operate it.

Thanks to Bridget for the tip.

Mom charged in toddler’s death:

I previously posted about Elijah Burger here. He was toddler who was beaten to death by his DSD, Andre Hampton, in a run down Charlotte motel room. Now his mother, Lashinna Burger, has also been charged in his death.

So far CMPD is being tight lipped about what led them to arrest Burger.

Allegations of violence before death:

Andre Hampton was arrested for beating 23-month-old son to death in a rundown Charlotte motel room. When EMS workers took Ellijah Burger from the motel room he had lashes across his chest.

Lashinna Burger left Elijah with Hampton even though Hampton has a history of abuse. Hampton had been previously arrested for domestic violence against Lashinna Burger but both cases were dropped due to ‘lack of evidence’.

Ladies, if your man has beaten you it isn’t a far stretch that he will beat his own son if you’re not around. If he beats you he doesn’t love you no matter what he says.

UPDATE: Baby Left In SW Charlotte McDonald’s Restroom:

I love it when local stories make the national news and by love it I mean not really.

Anyway, an hours old newborn was abandoned in a McDonald’s restroom in Charlotte, NC today.

A man took the infant into the women’s restroom and ran out of the building. A customer found the baby. The baby was rushed to the hospital, examined and was found to be healthy.

What’s the problem you ask? Doesn’t North Carolina have safe haven laws? Why yes, yes we do. The baby can be up to seven days old but must be left with a responsible adult. A McDonald’s restroom is not a responsible adult.

I wonder if the man was on his way to a responsible adult only to freak out at the prospect. Either way police are saying that the mother could face charges.

Which leads to another issue. State safe haven laws are to confusing from state to state. In some states a police station is a safe haven. In some states it isn’t.

There needs to be a federal safe haven law.

Last month I wrote about David Crespi, the Charlotte, North Carolina banker who “snapped” one night and murdered his twin daughters, Tess and Sam. Shortly after the killings, Crespi called 911 and confessed. The case is so baffling that Oprah Winfrey made it the focus of her Tuesday show. Crespi’s wife Kim has already talked to the media before, but this is the first time we’ve heard from David himself.

The article linked above contains bits and pieces of Winfrey’s interview with Crespi, and the second linked video (“Crespis Discuss Mental Illness”) contains a snippet of the broadcast. Oprah asks a question I’ve been wondering as well. If, as Crespi reported to police, he was so stressed out about finances and caring for his family, why didn’t he kill himself as opposed to his twin daughters? His nonsensical answer: I tried it before, and I promised my wife I wouldn’t do it again.

Oprah’s response? “I wished you had promised her not to harm your daughters.” To which Crespi responds, “I wish I had too.”

In this case, I still fall on the side of Crespi being mentally ill. We know that he had been switched to Prozac four days before this incident, and that a post-crime evaluation ruled Prozac was “not a good drug” for Crespi to be on. (You think?) Listening to him talk on Oprah, and reading the transcript of his chat with detectives, it’s obvious that this is a mentally unbalanced man whose capacity for logical action was impaired. The “logic” that is threaded through his actions is the same logic that gripped Andrea Yates, driving her to murder. The question for society is: Could this tragedy have been prevented? And if so, how? More aggressive treatment? Better monitoring? Pre-emptive confinement?

This next tragic tale comes courtesy of fellow the True Crime Blogroll member Stephen McCaskill of Crime Scene Blog. Stephen links to a 911 call from David Crespi of Charlotte, North Carolina, who dialed the police immediately after “freaking out” and killing his two twin daughters. (The original link to the 911 call came courtesy of Crime in Charlotte.)

This call is one of the most disturbing things you’ll ever hear. Crespi begins the conversation by bluntly telling police, “I just killed my daughters”. Various police and emergency personnel spend most of the call attempting to assess the state of the girls. Despite Crespi’s repeated insistence that “they’re dead” and that there’s “nothing you can do…nothing”, the operators are obviously holding out hope that there’s something – anything – they can do. They spend a little time trying to assess why Crespi wigged out, positing that perhaps he had a fight with his wife, who had just left the house.

And that brings us to the most disturbing facet of this call: David Crespi himself. Here’s a man who has just done the unforgiveable – a man who will rightly go down in history as a murdering bastard. And yet, at the same time, he sounds so…pathetic. So…broken. The 911 operators (who, as Crime Scene Blog points out, deserve special honors for remaining so calm and professional in the face of such a tragedy) manage to learn that Crespi has a history of depression. What’s more, Crespi had just switched antidepressants a week ago, and hadn’t been sleeping as a result. In short, Crespi was fucked up. His mental state brought him to a fork in the road, where he had a choice between crying for help or letting himself snap. He chose the latter path. You can tell from the trembling and anguish in his voice that he knows he chose the wrong prong of the fork…and that there’s no taking it back.

I can only guess what Crespi’s wife must be going through. Can you imagine going out to get a haircut, and coming home to find your family demolished in a fit of insanity? She must have known, of course, that her husband was ill. But did she ever in a million years believe that he would be capable of such a thing?

Above is a picture of Crespi with his wife and daughters, in happier times. Here is Crespi’s booking photo. They don’t even look like the same human being…