Jacksonville mom who shook baby for interrupting computer game pleads to murder
http://jacksonville.com/david-hunt/2010-10-27/story/jacksonville-mom-who-shook-baby-interrupting-computer-game-pleads-2nd
A Jacksonville mother charged with shaking her baby to death has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. Alexandra V. Tobias, 22, was arrested after the January death of 3-month-old Dylan Lee Edmondson. She told investigators she became angry because the baby was crying while she was playing a computer game called Farmville on the Facebook social-networking website.
Tobias entered her plea Wednesday before Circuit Judge Adrian G. Soud. A second-degree murder charge is punishable by up to life in prison. Prosecutor Richard Mantei said Tobias' sentence could be less because of state guidelines that call for 25 to 50 years. Soud offered no promises on what he'll order during a sentencing hearing scheduled for December.
Outside the courtroom, Mantei said Tobias' plea will help avoid the family reliving the tragedy during a jury trial. Tobias told investigators that she shook the baby, smoked a cigarette to compose herself and then shook him again. She said the baby may have hit his head during the shaking.
It's actually perfectly natural to feel angry with your baby. I certainly did and I'd be very surprised if I met a parent who could honestly claim that they'd never felt angry with their baby. But actually acting on that feeling? There's nothing natural about that. Just imagining your child coming to any harm should make you feel ill.
ReplyDeleteIt's too easy to blame this on FarmVille. I'm not going to state whether or not video game addiction is real or not, as I'm simply not qualified to do so. But it's my opinion that there has to be something very wrong with you if you're capable of shaking your baby because they interrupted your leisure time, there has to be something very, very wrong with you in the first place. Jumping up and pointing the finger at video games isn't going to solve anything. You don't see childrens charities calling for video games to be banned and that's because it could just as easily have been a TV program or a book. It could have been a phone call. It could have been anything.