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An entire family was killed last week. These headlines ran in the news: "Boy, 14 Slit Throats Before Setting Fire, Investigators Say." "His Family Slain, a Boy's Life of Rage Emerges" (The New York times, 7/23/10).
The news reports described a shocking case of murder-suicide. Early Thursday morning, around 4 am on July 22, 2010, a fire broke out in a four family house on Staten Island. Lt. Robert Strafer of Ladder Company 80 pushed into the second-floor apartment and found 2-year-old Jermaine. The toddler was rushed to the hospital but later died of smoke inhalation.
The firefighters then discovered four bodies in the family's apartment. The two little girls, 10-year-old Brittney and 7-year-old Melonie, were found in the living room. Their throats had been cut. The mother's body was also found in the living room. The cause of her death was not immediately apparent. The oldest son, 14-year-old C.J., was found in a back bedroom. His neck had been slashed and a razor was discovered under his arm.
The preliminary findings indicated that this was a case of arson. Much of the apartment was destroyed in the blaze but investigators were able to recover a butane lighter in Ms. Jones's bedroom. The words "am sorry" were legible on the charred note fused to the lighter. Investigators believed the lighter was used to set the fire and suspected that the words were part of a suicide note. All the early reports seemed to point to C.J. as the murderer.
I sat down to write a post about this case. I expected that I would discover that C.J. was a severely depressed or psychotic teen with a long history of violent behavior. What I learned however, did not fit my predictions. It was reported that he had serious emotional problems and a history of fire setting. Allegedly C.J. assaulted an assistant principal at his intermediate school and was going to be transferred in the Fall to a special education school for severely emotionally disturbed children.
Although C.J. was troubled, he did not have a history of extreme violence. There were no reports of his having assaulted anyone in his family. Quite the contrary; he was described as being close to his younger siblings and helpful to his mother. Neighbors reported that he frequently babysat for his sisters and brother. One neighbor even described C.J. as their "guardian" (New York Times, 7/23/10).
As a forensic psychologist I have evaluated a number of adolescents who had killed members of their family. I discuss one case in my book, The Measure of Madness: Inside the Disturbed and Disturbing Criminal Mind. The teens I assessed had killed parents or grandparents. None had killed a younger sibling. Many had histories of psychiatric treatment and most had been physically and emotionally abused. C.J. surprisingly did not fit this pattern.
The more I learned about C.J. the more uncomfortable I felt writing about him as a killer. He just did not seem capable of murdering his mother and siblings. So I decided to wait until I learned more about him and his family.
Within a few days evidence was found that suggested an entirely different scenario. The adult-like handwriting on the note was consistent with writing found in the mother's diary. The autopsies found no traces of smoke in C.J.'s or his sisters' lungs. Apparently, the older three children died before the fire was set. Traces of smoke, however, were found in their mother's lungs. Pills were found in her stomach. A more recent headline reads, "Autopsies Suggest Mother, Not Son, Was Killer in Staten Island Case," (The New York Times, July 27, 2010).
I'm glad I did not write anything about this case for a few days. Although I was tempted to post something quickly, I felt uneasy. I had difficulty understanding what had occurred in that home. I still don't. It now appears that Ms. Jones killed her children and then committed suicide.
Although she was labeled as "monster mom" in one article, (New York Post, July 27, 2010), all the reports I've read portray Ms. Jones as a caring mother. I expect that we will learn more about her in the coming weeks. I suspect, however, that we will never discover what drove her to kill her children and herself.
