"Salem mom gets 20-25 years in jail for slashing children’s throats" by Laura Crimaldi, Globe Staff January 02, 2015
SALEM — A Salem mother admitted Friday to slashing the throats of her two children, dousing them in lighter fluid, and then setting fire to her apartment, during a court hearing in which a prosecutor described how the woman told her son he had “lived too long” before slashing him.
During the hearing, Tanicia Goodwin, 27, hung her head low as she answered questions posed by the judge. She told him she is bipolar and takes medication.
There you go!
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While firefighters were at the apartment, Goodwin went to Salem police headquarters, where she smashed a glass case displaying police patches and collapsed in the lobby, said Melissa A. Woodard, an assistant district attorney.
There, she repeatedly said, “I’m sorry babies. I’m sorry babies. I did what I had to do to protect my children,” according to Woodard. She later nodded affirmatively when asked by an officer if she had hurt her children, the prosecutor said.
Defense attorney Denise Regan told the judge Goodwin has been treated for mental illness since she was 8 or 9 years old and suffers from schizoaffective disorder. She said as a girl Goodwin lived in squalid conditions in an abusive and neglectful home.
That is supposed to excuse all this?
Since being arrested, Goodwin has been hospitalized nine times for mental health issues, Regan said.
“She loves her children very much and wishes them the best,” Regan said....
She sure has a strange way of showing it.
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