Tragic and unbelievable. Those are the words that immediately came to my mind upon hearing about the Florida mom who admitted to murdering her 16-year-old daughter and 13-year-old son.
Have you heard about this case? It’s all over the cable news networks.
According to CNN, on the evening of January 27th, Julie Powers Schenecker allegedly shot and killed her two children for “talking back.”
Police say the 50-year-old wife of a U.S. Army colonel admitted to them that she shot her son twice in the head with a .38 caliber pistol while she drove him to soccer practice in suburban Tampa. Officers say the mom then drove back to the family’s $500,000 luxury home and parked her vehicle in the garage with her dead son still sitting in the passenger’s seat. According to police, Julie then walked upstairs to her daughter Calyx’s bedroom and shot the teen cross country star in the face as she sat studying at her computer.
According to police reports, the mom remained in the house for the remainder of the night. Police arrived at the Schenecker home the next morning after Julie’s mother called them from Texas, worried she couldn’t reach her daughter. Officers say they found Julie sitting on the back porch in clothes soaked with her children’s blood.
CNN says the explanation the mother gave police regarding the shootings was that the teens were being “mouthy.” Apparently, Julie gave police explicit details about the shootings, but the only reason she provided to detectives about why she would kill her kids is that she was sick of them talking back to her.
The mom is now charged with two counts of murder. Meanwhile, her husband and the father of the two murdered teens, colonel Parker Schenecker, is reportedly on his way back from the Middle East where he was stationed at the time of the shootings.
Is there any other word to describe this situation other than tragic? Even if you aren’t a parent, you have to be moved by this horrific incident. My daughter is only six, but she’s had her share of mouthy moments. As parents I’m sure we’ve all experienced times when we wanted to rattle our kids into submission after they talked back or disrespected us, but we don’t. Obviously, there is more to this case than a mom losing it after her kids talked back to her.
What do you make of the sad and sickening event?
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