Walnut creek mom kills son in murder-suicide

Contra Costa County authorities say a mother shot her teenage son to death at a popular state park before turning the gun on herself.

[Justin Adatepe]

How sad is that? It's quite bizarre, too... A murder suicide on Mount Diablo, in our park?

Worse (if that's possible), this is a sixteen year-old, and the mother killed him because he was spending every other weekend with his father who had recently moved to the area.

She didn't want the boy to see his father, so she decided it was better he shouldn't live at all.

Unbelievable...

It's unacceptable (although not surprising) that the father was passed over to give custody to this crazy person.

[allyn n]

ahhhhh.....there was another side to this "crazy person". She was always very theatrical and demanding and overly emotional, but she loved her boy and no one would have suspected anything like this was coming. She was almost too demanding as a mother.....no soda! no snacks! no junk food! Homework! Study! Track! Music! Too protective!

She felt the long absent father was unfit and she also felt that if he had a clue that she had financial problems, he would haul her back into court. The rest of the family didn't necessarily agree with her, but divorces are painful and we don't know how many of her buttons the ex pushed.

Unfortunately, she also felt her friends and family were all unfit, so was estranged from almost all of us for many, many years. She only reached out to us the last year and a half, and we didn't see any sign of anything worse than usual. Trust me....she was a pain....overly sensitive, easily hurt, quick to anger....but that was normal for her.

The depths that she went to to hide her distress and financial failure from others was incredible. She had friends and relatives who had no idea that she had gotten that far in the hole or was contemplating anything of the kind.

We who knew Judy are left with anger and shock and regret and sorrow...that this woman felt she couldn't turn to any of us, that there were no options (we disagreed of course!) and that this horrible final act was what she needed to do. In her own sick way, she felt taking her son with her was the loving thing to do and that she was protecting him from life.

After a month of fury and bitterness, I am beginning to feel sorry for the sick woman who took over Judy's mind. The loss of her son was such a blow to all of us, whether we knew him well or not. One of the many problems with what she did, is that her legacy will never be that of "super mom" which she tried so hard to be. Also, with her act, we are all deprived of the ability to grieve the loss of her. She prevented that.

Sorry to ramble so much.....I haven't spoken much about it and am still confused and mad!

[allyn]

Judy was a person obsessed with her perceptions that people disrespected her, wanted to take advantage of her, had cruel intentions, bullied her, etc. etc. A bit sensitive, being raised in an extremely abusive home, with an alcoholic military father, didn't help one bit. Since she was a child, she seemed to view the world thru hurt feelings and hyper sensitivity. No one was good enough or cared enough or was loyal enough.....from parents to siblings to cousins to boyfriends, hubby, bosses, co-workers, landlords, friends. Jeez. The list goes on. She was a letter-writer, sending multi-paged complaint letters to almost everyone on that list above. She never felt she was angry, disillusioned, hateful, demanding, bossy, or could be hurtful herself. She was always the victim. She could go years and years without speaking to friends or family, and then call up as if nothing ever happened. We were always so grateful to hear from her, we rarely "fought back" and just wanted a clean slate.

Her lifelong money problems were almost a joke in the family. Year after year of her being in trouble with her bills, led to a kind of disregard from her family, especially as she lived more extravagantly than most of us. She called me the Sunday before she did what she did......sobbing about her lack of money, claiming she might be homeless soon......and I spoke sympathetically, but thought to myself that she was being her usual drama-queen self and was exaggerating. I felt grateful she wasn't hitting me up for money. Most of her family (privately) felt she should go get a "real job" and downsize her lifestyle. How difficult is this to figure out?

As far as not wanting her ex to have her son......she felt she did the labor of raising him, felt bitterly that the father hadn't wanted a child in the first place, and that father's disinterest in his boy and his cheating were absolutely the causes of their divorce. As our brother claimed, she was "livid" that ex had walked back into the picture.....like "big man on campus" and was becoming involved in the boy's life. She was furious that she got no extra assistance for the myriad things that Adam was involved with, like band and track. Ex seemed to feel his child support was enough. Did we agree with her views? Not necessarily.

Adam, himself, was the absent-minded professor type.....bright enough in his own way, but prone to answer with a "Huh!" more often than not. He loved his dad and family and would have liked to go live with them. Not very hard to understand. Most teens want to go live with the more permissive parent, don't they?

Judy felt the ex and his current wife were pathological liars and evil people. Maybe they are. I'll never know. Just like most people will never know there was a funny, goofy, loving side to Judy. Her actions have catapulted her past the abusive acts of our drunken father, into the outer limits of evil. Anyone's slights or hurts done to her, pale in comparison to how she decided to bow out. What a horrible legacy! Poor father. Poor family. Poor Adam. Even.....sometimes....poor Judy.

thanks

[hardcore]

"Lovers quarel" No doubt.