|
A 2nd look at a mother's crime: A woman who says postpartum depression moved her to kill her children in 1985 gains support as she fights for clemency.
Julie Deardorff, Tribune staff reporter;
Abstract:
For the next several hours, [Debra Gindorf] desperately tried to end her life using the gas oven, a steak knife, ropes and pillows. Finally, the dazed 21-year-old walked into the Zion police station and confessed to killing 2-year-old Christina and 3-month-old Jason. At the time in 1985, Gindorf's actions seemed inexplicable; the court rejected her insanity defense and found her legally responsible for the deaths. She was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole.
Full Text:
(Copyright 2001 by the Chicago Tribune)
Debra Gindorf was profoundly depressed on the March night 16 years ago when she fed her two small children lethal amounts of crushed sleeping pills, tucked them into bed, and tried to kill herself by swallowing the same medication. She awoke the next morning with the sickening realization that she was still alive. And her children were dead.
For the next several hours, Gindorf desperately tried to end her life using the gas oven, a steak knife, ropes and pillows. Finally, the dazed 21-year-old walked into the Zion police station and confessed to killing 2-year-old Christina and 3-month-old Jason. At the time in 1985, Gindorf's actions seemed inexplicable; the court rejected her insanity defense and found her legally responsible for the deaths. She was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole.
Today though, Gindorf has support from a host of national experts who say she was suffering from what is now called postpartum psychosis, an extremely rare mental illness following childbirth. Consequently, her attorneys have argued in a petition for clemency that she should not be held responsible for her actions on that night.
Though mood disorders and postpartum depression were documented by Hippocrates as early as the 4th Century B.C., the American medical and legal communities have only begun in the past decade to recognize the breadth and severity of the mental illness.
Even as the nation recoils after learning that a Houston mother who reportedly suffered from postpartum mental depression allegedly killed her five children, the courts are lurching toward an acceptance that some mothers who kill their children are severely ill and are not fully responsible.
So far, the legal system has not found that in Gindorf's case.
"All these years I've been labeled a baby killer and I don't fit into that category," Gindorf, now 37, said in an interview from Dwight Correctional Center, where she has been incarcerated since 1986.
"I do feel some responsibility; it was done with my own hands. At the same time, I feel like I shouldn't be held responsible for something that has to do with mental illness or a medical condition. This was an accident that happened. It was not planned. I was not wanting to do away with my children.
"We do love our children," Gindorf added, her voice breaking. "It's just that things happen, we can't explain."
Since Gindorf was convicted in 1986, judges have recognized postpartum psychosis as a legitimate defense. And defendants charged with similar crimes have had their sentences reduced to voluntary manslaughter by reason of insanity or been acquitted and sent to mental health facilities. Between 1988 and 2000, five defendants in similar cases received probation and medical treatment but no prison time, according to DePaul law professor Michelle Oberman, an expert on infanticide.
One, Bethe Feltman, a depressed Colorado homemaker who killed her children, ages 3 years and 3 months in 1998, was found innocent by reason of insanity. A judge ordered her committed until she was no longer a danger.
"The cases show courts are beginning to understand a postpartum mental illness may lead a woman to kill her children, despite the fact that she deeply loves them." Oberman said.
Other factors have changed the U.S. landscape, including the 1994 addition of postpartum mental illness in the American Psychiatric Association's primary diagnostic guide.
Most recently, two tragedies have raised a considerable amount of public awareness.
The family of Melanie Stokes of Chicago, who killed herself June 11 in the throes of postpartum psychosis, spoke out in an effort to shed light on the mysterious disease.
The actions of the Houston mother, Andrea Yates--who has been charged with drowning her five children--triggered an avalanche of calls to support groups like Depression After Delivery and Postpartum Support International, which didn't exist when Gindorf killed her children.
Even as the illness becomes better understood, the crimes remain unspeakably chilling.
"I think we're horrified by the idea that a mother, even in the throes of postpartum psychosis, could take the life of a baby because that violates sacred beliefs about motherhood and parenthood," said Diane Sanford, president of Women's Health Care Partnership and author of the "Postpartum Survival Guide."
England's approach
British law, however, has long held that women who kill their children might suffer from postpartum mental illness.
In 1938, Britain established an Infanticide Act. It states that if a woman kills her child under the age of 12 months, "but at the time of the act the balance of her mind was disturbed by reason of her not having fully recovered from the effect of giving birth to the child ..." she is guilty of infanticide and should be punished as if she had been guilty of manslaughter.
Likewise, English doctors are often more aggressive in treating postpartum disorders, routinely giving hormone injections as preventive treatment. Several English hospitals offer mother-baby units for treatment of mothers who suffer from postpartum disorders.
Mental disorders after childbirth generally fall into three categories: baby blues, postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis. Baby blues--which commonly include crying jags, shifting moods, restlessness, irritability and loss of appetite--can last between a few days and a few weeks after childbirth.
For about 15 percent of new mothers, this deepens into a more serious and lasting depression with symptoms such as weepiness, anxiety or obsessive worries about the baby's health. Often the new mothers are ashamed of their dark feelings and reluctant to talk.
One out of every 1,000 new mothers has a psychotic episode, which takes the form of severe depression or mania, with symptoms that include rapid mood changes, despair or elation, confusion, severe insomnia and suicidal thoughts. Delusion and hallucinations often center on the baby; the mother may think that the baby is dead, a devil, or better off dead.
Gindorf, who felt depressed after Christina was born in 1983, encountered the blues again when she was 5 months' pregnant with Jason and sought treatment for it at American International Hospital in Zion. But she was never warned that it might be exacerbated after the birth of her baby, or that it could be treated with therapy and medication, according to her application for clemency, filed by Catherine Joyce and Karen Quirk of Winston & Strawn, and Kathleen Hamill of the state appellate defender's office.
According to the petition, three months after Jason's birth, while living in a small house in Zion with no phone and no car, she found that the depression had intensified to the point that she was crying for three to four days straight and feeling isolated and confused. When Gindorf decided to take her life, she wrote a will and letters to her children. "Mommy had too many problems in her head that she couldn't deal with, no matter what decision she made," she wrote to Christina, who was 23 months at the time. "[But] I put myself in that position, not you! Mommy wanted you and loved you very much."
But then Gindorf began to worry about who would take care of her children when she was gone. "In her delusional state, she believed her children would be better off dead. They would be playing and waiting for her in heaven," according to the clemency application.
`We were going to be happy'
"I kissed the kids and told them I loved them and that we were going to be happy where we were going," Gindorf wrote in a letter to a friend a month after the murders. "Passed out. And then I woke up about 7:30 a.m., seen that my kids were dead and I totally freaked. Ran to the kitchen and turned on all the [gas] pilots on, got a blanket, covered my face, lied down on the counter and started breathing deeply for a long time. But I woke up ... I was wondering what was going on. Why wasn't I dead yet?"
At Gindorf's trial, neighbors and family members testified that she was a good mother who deeply loved her children and kept them well dressed, well fed, happy and healthy. Meticulously detailed baby books and photo albums show a mother who wanted to document every moment of their lives.
She entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity and was convicted in a finding of guilty but mentally ill. Because she was responsible for two deaths, she was sentenced under Illinois' multiple homicide law, which required natural life in prison without parole. The trial judge could not consider her mental status or the fact that the homicide occurred in the midst of a failed suicide attempt or that Debra had no criminal history.
For years, Gindorf herself struggled to explain what she had done. It wasn't until she saw Michele Remington on the "Donahue" show that she put the pieces together. In 1987, Remington shot her 6-week old son and tried to kill herself. The judge dismissed the murder charge on the basis that she was insane and suffering from a biologically induced depression.
"I felt a lift off my shoulders. [Before that] I was starting to believe what everyone was telling me, that I was a horrible person," she said, her voice trailing. "I come to find out I was the best person I could be and that I was not responsible. How can I be responsible and in control with a chemical and biological thing?"
Despite more than a dozen letters on her behalf from the country's leading experts on postpartum psychosis, her second clemency request was rejected without explanation in February. She also unsuccessfully applied in 1989.
At Dwight, Gindorf networks with others who have suffered from postpartum psychosis and support groups and for the last 10 years has worked maintenance at a sewing factory; she now fixes machines. She finished her GED while in jail at Lake County, but she says she can't get into classes at Dwight because she's a lifer and has fewer privileges than other inmates.
Her daughter Christina would be 18 years old now. "It's been 16 years, 2 months and 25 days, and it's still so fresh I can smell the scent of a newborn," Gindorf said. "I can still hear the voice of my daughter saying silly things, laughing or asking me a question. Some people tell me I need to let go but it's hard because I miss them. It's still real.
"Whether I'm in prison or out, that will always follow me and I'll be punished until my last breath," she said. "I miss them. They should be here [on Earth]. Not me."
----------
For more information on postpartum depression, contact Postpartum Support International at 805-967-7636 or Depression After Delivery at 800-944-4PPD.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sub Title: [Chicagoland Final Edition]
Start Page: 1.1
ISSN: 10856706
Subject Terms: Appeals
Mothers
Postpartum depression
Murders & murder attempts
|
|