"Killing their children and then committing suicide is common,"

US Army man's wife kills her children
Sun Jan 30, 2011 1:8PM
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A Tampa Police officer escorts Julie Schenecker to jail on Friday. AP PhotoAn American mother has confessed to shooting dead her two teenage children in the state of Florida and is being charged with two counts of first degree murder.


Police were alerted when the suspect's mother in Texas told police she was unable to reach her family in Florida.

50-year-old Julie Schenecker was found at her home in New Tampa by police covered in blood -- with her 13-year-old son shot dead in the car in the family's garage, and her 16-year-old daughter in an upstairs room.

The Herald and Weekly Times reported that Schenecker shot her son, Powers Beau Schenecker, twice in the head while driving back to their home on Thursday night. She then proceeded to shoot her daughter, Calyx Powers Schenecker, upon arriving home.
Police said Schenecker has confessed that she killed her children because, "they talked back, they were mouthy."

She had reportedly left a detail note specifying that she planned to commit suicide after killing her children.

Schenecker -- the wife of a colonel in the US Army intelligence who was in Qatar -- has since been hospitalized after being taken to the Hillsborough County Jail to be charged, AFP stated.

"Killing their children and then committing suicide is common," says Kathleen Heide, a professor of criminology at the University of South Florida.

"This is a sign of overwhelming despair. They usually have a major depression with psychosis,” the Tampa Tribune quoted Heide as saying.