Maternal infanticide often preventable Tragedy of mothers killing

Rebecca Vesely, STAFF WRITER

Why would a mother kill her own children?

It's a question everyone asks when a mother does the unthinkable. Andrea Yates drowns her five children in a bathtub in her Houston home in 2001. Susan Smith rolls her car into a South Carolina lake in 1994, her two sons strapped inside.

And now Lashuan Harris of Oakland throws her three small children off a San Francisco fishing pier into the Bay, according to authorities.

Why mothers kill their children is a question mental health experts are struggling to understand.

"The whole thing doesn't make any sense," said Dr. Renee Binder, psychiatry professor at UCSF and director of the school's psychiatry and law program. "But it's really tragic because there are usually treatments available."

Harris had a history of mental illness and told police voices instructed her to throw her children into the water. Relatives said she had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, or possibly post- traumatic stress disorder or bipolar disorder.

Schizophrenia is characterized by severe impairment in thoughts, feelings and behavior. People with the disorder tend to isolate themselves and be socially withdrawn, though many live productive lives.

Susan Romenelli, an expert on schizophrenia and other mental illnesses at Menninger Psychiatric Center in Houston, said people with schizophrenia don't necessarily act on hallucinations.

But if a person does act on an internal voice or hallucination commanding them to do something, it's often those closest to them who suffer, she said.

Triggers for hallucinations include going off prescription drug treatments, stress and substance abuse.

Oakland police confirmed Harris was treated for cocaine and meth use in February when she was brought into John George Psychiatric Pavilion, Alameda County's locked inpatient psychiatric hospital, on an involuntary hold.

She was also a victim of domestic violence, according to court records.

And considering Harris' age -- just 23 -- experts said it is not unusual for the situation to get out of control.

Schizophrenia is closely related to psychosis brought on in rare cases by postpartum depression, and schizophrenia can make mothers more susceptible to the disorder, Romenelli said.

About 10 to 20 percent of new mothers develop postpartum depression. Of those, 1 to 2 percent per 1,000 develop post-partum depression severe enough to trigger psychosis, including hearing voices and acting on thoughts telling them to kill their children or themselves.

Staff writers Angela Hill and Kristin Bender contributed to this report.

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