Mother Shot Son, Turned Gun on Self, Police Say

[jpak]

http://bethesda.patch.com/articles/police-investigating-possible-murder-suicide-in-kensington

Margaret Jensvold shot and killed her son, Benjamin Barnhard, and then turned the gun on herself, according police.
The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner ruled Barnhard's death a homicide and Jensvold's death a suicide on Wednesday night, according to Montgomery County Police.

James Barnhard, Jensvold's ex-husband and Benjamin's father, released the following statement to police: "I loved my son and ex-wife, and I was proud of both of them. My son was a successful graduate of Wellspring Academy. He was featured on 'Too Fat for Fifteen: Fighting Back,' and lost 160 pounds in the last year, due to his hard work and determination. I do not understand this tragedy, and I do not know why this has happened. I will hold them in my heart, and they will be sorely missed by all who loved them. Please keep us in your prayers.”

<more>

[dtexdem]

1. Why can't these folks get it right? Shoot themselves first?

Then they can do whatever else. ;-)

[Hangingon]

2. Another blood dance about a tragedy.

I just wonder how it got 8 recs.

[Katya Mullethov]

3. If you want to make an omlette

"You gotta break a few eggs ."

[jpak]

5. For every vigilante gun story there are more gun tragedies like this

yup

[Common Sense Party]

7. To which "vigilante gun" stories are you referring? n/t

[TheWraith]

9. Actually, no. Defensive gun uses outnumber gun deaths by orders of magnitude.

The lowest available figure for defensive gun uses per year is 250,000. If you include murders and suicides both, they're still outnumbered by defensive uses by a factor of eight.

[iverglas]

10. And I am the Queen of Roumania

No more needs to be said, at this point.

If I say it often enough, it will be true.

You know it will.

[TheWraith]

11. Um... no, it won't be.

Seriously, iverglas, I know you subscribe to faith-based facts, but that's actually not the way reality works.

[iverglas]

19. ah, you got it

Defensive gun uses outnumber gun deaths by orders of magnitude.

Seriously, TheWraith, I know you subscribe to faith-based facts, but that's actually not the way reality works.

But then, you get to define "defensive gun uses" according to your own whim.

So I shall define "Roumania" according to mine.

And we shall all be happy.

[petronius]

32. You mangled your quote. It's "And I am Marie of Romania."

(Insert finger-wagging smiley here.)

[AtheistCrusader]

17. DOJ numbers lawful DGU's at about 60k per year.

NCVS says about 100k.

You forgot injuries though. Most people who are shot, survive. So you would add the total killed, plus total injured, in interpersonal conflict (I would put suicide separate, as DGU was your subject) and you have a number slightly higher than the DOJ number, but about 30k below the NCVS.

And that's leaving out about 10k 'undetermined'.

[ileus]

23. Most everyone knows this...

[iverglas]

4. there's an important issue here, of course

Several, in fact.

But the one I'm thinking of is: how many of all those "irrelevant" suicide-by-firearm statistics nobody wants anybody to mention are actually part of homicide-suicide events?

I'm not suggesting it is a huge proportion. But it's real.

There are simply not that many instances where a person kills another by strangling or stabbing and then goes and jumps off a bridge. Firearms are the facilitating factor in most, and it is obvious on the face of it that most would not occur absent firearms.

[Remmah2]

25. How you splain this then Lucy?

http://www.aol.com/2011/08/04/san-diego-familys-murder-suicide-autopsy_n_918356.html

SAN DIEGO — A tow-truck operator killed himself by tying a weight to his neck in the family swimming pool, and his wife and two daughters were forcibly drowned, according to an autopsy report released Wednesday.

Alfredo Pimienta, 44, was found fully clothed, with his hands secured behind his back with rusty handcuffs and a yellow rope tied around his ankles. His head was weighted down by a tow hitch attached to a wire around his neck.

Investigators found his youngest girl was drugged and bruised. The elder girl and wife had several blunt force injuries.

"Throughout the home there were multiple items with written instructions indicating whom to call, wishes for body disposition, and other notes of a suicidal nature, all appearing to have been written by the parents," the report said.

The autopsy shed no light on a motive for the May 24 murder-suicide. Police have said the family was in financial distress and both parents planned the deaths.

The body of 38-year-old Georgina Pimienta was found clothed in a bathtub inside a locked bathroom, submerged in about 10 inches of water with paper obstructing the drain. Investigators detected a sleep medicine, zolpidem, in her system, likely administered by her or her husband.

[iverglas]

26. maybe whoever Lucy might be can explain what she said

In the meantime, what I said was:

There are simply not that many instances where a person kills another by strangling or stabbing and then goes and jumps off a bridge. Firearms are the facilitating factor in most, and it is obvious on the face of it that most would not occur absent firearms.

I'm sure you meant to mention Andrea Yates, too.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder-suicide

In a research specifically related to murder–suicide, Milton Rosenbaum (1990) discovered the murder–suicide perpetrators to be vastly different from perpetrators of homicide alone. Whereas murderer–suicides were found to be highly depressed and overwhelmingly men, other murderers were not generally depressed and more likely to include women in their ranks.<2> In the U.S. the overwhelming number of cases are male-on-female and involve guns.<3> Around one-third of partner homicides end in the suicide of the perpetrator. From national and international data and interviews with family members of murder–suicide perpetrators, the following are the key predictors of murder–suicide: access to a gun, a history of substance abuse, the male partner some years older than the female partner, a break-up or pending break-up, a history of battering, and suicidal ideation by the perpetrator.

Though there is no national tracking system for murder–suicides in the United States, medical studies into the phenomenon estimate between 1,000 to 1,500 deaths per year in the US,<4> with the majority occurring between spouses or intimate partners, males were the vast majority of the perpetrators, and over 90% of murder suicides involved a firearm. Depression, marital or/and financial problems, and other problems are generally motivators.

You lassoed an outlier, pardner. Congratulations! Gonna have it stuffed and hang it over the mantel?



html fixed

[iverglas]

6. Montgomery psychiatrist kills son, self

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/montgomery-psychiatrist-kills-son-self/2011/08/03/gIQAV5Q4sI_story.html

Margaret F. Jensvold, a graduate of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, was deeply committed to the care of her son, Ben Barnhard, who suffered from an autoimmune disease, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and obesity, according to her friends, court records and Ben’s father. The two lived in Kensington.

... In divorce records filed in Montgomery County Circuit Court, Jensvold listed 18 professionals her son needed to see. Among them: child neurologist, allergist, infectious-disease specialist, rheumatologist, educational tutor and psychiatrist. At one point in her career, Jensvold gave up her private practice to become a salaried psychiatrist for Kaiser Permanente, which afforded her more time to seek medical care and educational opportunities for her son.

... Part of her commitment was how strongly she delved into her son’s medical problems. Jensvold thought that his illness was the result of a strep infection, said Bob Baum, an attorney who represented her.

When women commit suicide and kill their child or children, it is commonly the case that they cannot cope with their own lives and also cannot conceive of leaving their children behind to face life without them. (Men who do the same commonly have different reasons/pathologies.)

Given the intensity of this woman's focus on her son, this might seem a reasonable hypothesis here: her primary intent was suicidal, and killing her son spared him the fate she saw as worse than death.

[PavePusher]

12. "...Jensvold listed 18 professionals her son needed to see."

Wow. Munchausen Syndrome-by-proxy? Just a wild-ass guess on my part, but it looks to me like the mother had some serious issues herself and was projecting them on her child.

[mzmolly]

14. No. The child had a complicated illness

and she tried to help. I think acceptance vs. "fixing" goes a long way. Regardless, for a so called expert, it must have been difficult not to be able to find a perfect solution. Medicine doesn't always offer those.

[mzmolly]

13. As you note, her son had an immune disorder / neuropsychiatric

illness. While this must be very difficult to navigate, one would think a psychiatrist would be able to better cope?

A very sad story, regardless. :(

[iverglas]

18. "one would think a psychiatrist would be able to better cope"

Sadly not always the case.

http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=M1ARTM0012234

The tragedy of Dr. Suzanne Killinger Johnson focused attention on the darkest side of postpartum depression. It also had specialists pondering an anomalous but all-too-common situation: when a depressed patient is a doctor. At 37, Killinger Johnson appeared to have it all. A physician and psychotherapist who often counselled depressed and suicidal people, she was pretty and fit, with a mortgage-free house and a charming new baby. But none of that mattered the morning of Aug. 11 when, at the start of rush hour, she leaped off a Toronto subway platform into the path of a train, her six-month-old son in her arms. The doctor, for all of her training and expertise, was beyond the reach of the help she offered her own troubled patients. She was in the throes of a severe form of postpartum depression, so depressed she did not want to live. Young Cuyler died instantly. At week's end, Killinger Johnson, the daughter of a medical professor and a psychologist, remained in critical condition in hospital, her devastated family at her side.

That article discussed ways that the medical profession can address risks to its members.

She did die. She had been known to be at serious risk but eluded the family members who were watching her.

I don't have any knowledge of the mother in the case at hand here, but that kind of intense focus on a child's health can be indicative of problems. I have frankly had such concerns about a close family member of my own, whom I otherwise consider to be exceptionally smart and capable, in relation to their child's Lyme disease.

Jumping into the path of a subway train with an older or adult child or children would be more problematic than using a firearm.

[mzmolly]

20. Very sad.

On another note, I suppose one might feel more hopeless if they're considered an expert who can't assist their own child? :(

I'm very sorry about your family member iverglas.

[iverglas]

21. oh, they're fine, thanks!

-- having come through a stage III cancer of their own a couple of years ago ...

I'm a skeptic when it comes to these multi-symptom cluster kinda diseases, especially those "immune" ones. I have to admit it; it seems to me to be preponderantly people who were already really annoying (or their kids) who get them.

The kid in my family was genuinely quite sick, and doctors kept saying things like it's all in her head (joint pain in an 8-yr-old?) and she just doesn't want to go to school (she is exceptionally gifted and adored school). But I dunno, there's just a kind of fine line between dedicated and obsessed ... that was what I was concerned the parent in my family's case might be wandering over, but all are fine now!

Sort of as you said maybe: the more expertise, the more it can become all-consuming -- and the problems that can lead to.


edit - I see my lack of clarity may have been misleading. My concern re my family member wasn't that suicide was a possibility, just that they were getting obsessed and a tad irrational. ;)

[mzmolly]

22. I'm glad

all is well with your family now. :)

[TPaine7]

28. That may be true--referring to yur last sentence--but what makes you think

that absent guns, other means wouldn't be found?

It is very easy to get the whole family into a car and drive into an embankment or off of a cliff. No one could possibly stop you. You could catch everyone sleeping and use a hammer. (Actually, a hammer is easier than a gun in some ways--after the first victim or two, the others in other rooms wouldn't be awake and possibly fleeing or calling the police.)

[iverglas]

29. okay, I am going off to watch Torchwood now

with the image of somebody beating themself over a head with a hammer stuck in my brain.

I'll wait to see what else you might conjure up.

In the cases where people used firearms, why didn't they just drive off a cliff?

Perhaps you will come up with some studies of substitutions effects in suicide. I believe I've presented some in the past, so feel free to crib.

[Common Sense Party]

8. Unrec for drive-by, no commentary posting.

Question: would this incident be any less tragic if the murder/suicide weapon were a kitchen knife?

[shadowrider]

31. Of course. Everyone knows death by knife is less lethal than death by gun

Besides, the story would have been awarded zero points had the innocent victim defended themselves with a gun since it would have been a guns as solution to guns story.

[gejohnston]

15. This sort of thing is not uncommon in Japan

if not epidemic, the only difference is the weapon. So, what's your point?

[X_Digger]

16. And in Japan, it gets reported as multiple suicides

http://www.japanpsychiatrist.com/Abstracts/Shinju.html

The Japanese language has diverse words for shinju. Shinju has been classified into two major categories, johshi (mutually consented lovers' suicide) and oyako-shinju (parent-child suicide), the latter of which is subclassified further such as boshi-shinju (mother-child suicide), fushi-shinju (father-child suicide), and ikka-shinju (family suicide). The number of johshi have been declining in the past three decades. Although the number of oyako-shinju has been declining since the 1950s as well, it is still a serious problem.

Most cases of shinju are boshi-shinju in which the children, who are too young to decide on suicide themselves, are killed by their mothers. Ohara and Inamura have both pointed out that boshi-shinju and fushi-shinju have important differences (Ohara, 1963, 1965; Inamura, 1977, 1993). In boshi-shinju mothers in their 20s and 30s kill their children and then commit suicide. The children most often victimized in boshi-shinju are of preschool age. In fushi-shinju the fathers (who are usually older than the boshi-shinju mothers) kill their children (who are older than the victims of boshi-shinju), and then commit suicide. The most common reasons for boshi-shinju are psychiatric disorders and family conflicts, while those of fushi-shinju are financial problems and physical illness. Japanese often show considerable sympathy toward parents who are not able to find any other recourse but to commit suicide with her/his children.

[Remmah2]

24. Good ole USA.

Mom's pack their kids in the station wagon or mini van and drive it off the end of the pier or into a pond.

[iverglas]

30. really?

With themselves in the car? Got examples? Or were you just pretending the thread was about something it wasn't about, in case you could fool somebody into thinking "yeah, man, you're right, more guns!"?

[Marengo]

27. Thank God Theresa Riggi didn't have a gun! N/T