>
http://www.middletownjournal.com/hp/content/oh/story/news/local/2007/07/14/mj071507devilbaby.html
> >
> > [Middletown Journal, Middletown, Ohio, USA]
> >
> > Woman says she gave baby to Satan
> > Motorist re****ted woman walking ****d in street
> >
> > By Eric Robinette
> >
> > Staff Writer
> >
> > Saturday, July 14, 2007
> >
> > LEBANON - Police on Saturday
> > arrested a woman who said she had taken a
> > baby to the devil, after she had
> > allegedly left it in the center of
> > the road.
> >
> > According to the Lebanon Division
> > of Police, at about 2:38 a.m.
> > Saturday, a motorist re****ted seeing
> > a ****d black female carrying a
> > baby and walking in the roadway on
> > Miller Road Extension, east of the
> > intersection of North Broadway and
> > Miller Road. The motorist re****ted
> > that the woman had said she was
> > "taking the baby to Satan," according
> > to the news release.
> >
> > Officers responded to the scene and
> > found the woman ****d and with
> > blood on her body, but without the
> > baby. The woman did not respond to
> > officers, except to say she had
> > taken the baby to Satan and it was
> > Satan's child.
> >
> > The woman was identified as Shaunte
> > R. Mitchell, 29, of 910 N.
> > Broadway, Apt. 3, Lebanon. She was
> > taken to Bethesda Medical Center at
> > Arrow Springs for medical and
> > psychological evaluation.
> >
> > A second Lebanon police officer
> > soon found the 7-week-old infant
> > laying on his back in the middle
> > of Miller Road, placed across the
> > double yellow center line, about
> > a mile from where the woman was
> > found.
> >
> > The infant was taken to the
> > Lebanon Division of Fire facility on West
> > Silver Street, and Warren County
> > Children Services took custody of the
> > child, who was unharmed, said
> > Lebanon dispatcher Becky Hughes.
> >
> > Police said charges are being prepared
> > against Mitchell. The charges
> > are for child endangerment, disorderly
> > conduct and aggravated arson.
> > The arson charge stems from an
> > investigation at Mitchell's residence,
> > where accelerants were found, although
> > there was no indication the
> > apartment had actually burned, Hughes
> > said.
> >
> > Police are continuing to investigate
> > the case.
> >
> > Contact this re****ter at (513) 705-2836
> > or erobinette@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
have some thughts about this case.
First, the incident itself is quite similar to the usual baby-killing
and baby-mutilation news stories we hear about that are associated with
post-partum depression among untreated or previously undiagnosed
schizophrenic women, and the child is lucky that his or her mentally ill
mother did not use a bathtub or a convenient large body of water for
drowning it, a pillow for smothering it, or a butcher knife for
dismembering it, as those are far more common forms of religiously
delusional infanticide in such delusional cases than placing a baby at a
crossroads.
Second, we must then ask: Why, in her religious delusion, did this
mentally ill mother choose a crossroads in which to give her baby to
Satan? The perpetrator is African American (see the second paragraph of
newspaper re****t) and she seems to have wished to dispose of the child
by performing a skewed and potentilly lethal variation of a hoodoo
crossroads ritual, an African retentiaon in American folk magic whereby
one goes to a rural crossroads to meet the Devil and/or leave an
offering and/or to disposes of ritual remains.
This woman's religious delusion seems to have begun with the core idea
(a typical post-partun schizophrenic viewpoint) that there is something
unnatural about the baby, and she then added some common ideas about
women giving birth to the children of Satan, perhaps gleaned from
folklore, but very likely influenced by well-known Satanic horror films.
Then -- quite unusually for this type of case -- she ultimately located
the entire delusion firmly within the culturally specific framework of
an African American folk magic practice known as the crossroads ritual.
If you are familiar with the crossroads ritual, its inclusion in her
delusions will stand out quite sharply to your eyes. It certainly caught
my attention.
I have written extensively about variations of the crossroads ritual in
African American hoodoo and conjure (folk mgic), and some of my writing
on the subject is online, should you wish to read it for background.
See
http://www.luckymojo.com/crossroads.html
http://www.luckymojo.com/layingtricks.html#crossroads
After you look over those accounts, perhaps you will understand why i
think that this unfortunate mentally ill mother's delusions reflected a
cultural or family heritage of African American hoodoo practice that
resulted in her leaving the child at a crossroads rather than, say,
drowning, smothering, or stabbing it to death, as most similarly
mentally ill mothers are known to do.
cat yronwode
www.luckymojo.com
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