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thomas schachner
Sergeant
Username: Thomas
Post Number: 31
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 18, 2004 - 7:10 pm: |       |
Hello everybody,
just found this really strange news...sick world.
what struck me is the fact that she fed her child drugs hidden in grapes!
http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,10486519%255E1702,00.html
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Mentally ill mum not guilty of murder
By Stuart Walsh
August 18, 2004
A MOTHER who smothered her two-year-old son after a voice told her he was Jack the Ripper was found not guilty of murder today on the grounds of mental impairment.
Adele Stuart, 38, is being held at the Thomas Embling secure psychiatric hospital.
Supreme Court judge Justice Bernard Bongiorno will formally make a supervision order governing her continued detention on a date to be fixed.
Stuart, a paranoid schizophrenic, suffocated the boy, Shaun Clancy, after feeding him her own anti-psychotic drug hidden in grapes, the trial heard.
Crown prosecutor Mark Gamble had asked the jury to accept Stuart's plea of not guilty of murder due to mental impairment.
He said that police, alerted by a neighbour, found Shaun's naked body on the front doorstep of Stuart's flat in Wingate Avenue, Ascot Vale, on March 20, 2002.
Stuart was standing outside and was "clearly psychiatrically unwell".
Shaun, who died a month short of his third birthday, had bruises to his face and mouth and "scattered" bruises and abrasions on his body.
Mr Gamble said Stuart later told a psychiatrist she had smoked marijuana and heard a voice saying her son was Jack the Ripper and that she had to kill him before he killed her.
She also told other hospital staff she had given Shaun some of her tablets, telling him "this is something for you".
A post-mortem examination found the child had ingested grapes and a quantity of the anti-psychotic drug used by Stuart.
However, Mr Gamble said the "physical act of smothering" had caused the boy's death.
Stuart admitted she had stopped taking her prescribed medicine about two months before her son's death.
A psychiatrist, Dr Douglas Bell, said Stuart's case manager had visited her a week before Shaun's death and found no evidence of psychosis.
He said that smoking marijuana could have exacerbated Stuart's illness. |
Kris Law
Inspector
Username: Kris
Post Number: 408
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 19, 2004 - 8:48 am: | |
Sure, blame marijuana! It's driving people crazy all over the world.
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Jason Scott Mullins
Inspector
Username: Crix0r
Post Number: 300
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 19, 2004 - 10:21 am: | |
Hey There Thomas 
Indeed, a very interesting and sad story.
Kris -
Well, why not? If they can blame Mickey D's for making them fat, then they'll surely blame Mary Jane for making them crazy
crix0r
"I was born alone, I shall die alone. Embrace the emptiness, it is your end." |
Kris Law
Inspector
Username: Kris
Post Number: 410
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 19, 2004 - 11:41 am: | |
crix0r,
Sadly, that is all too true.
-K |
Dan Norder
Inspector
Username: Dannorder
Post Number: 234
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, August 19, 2004 - 12:44 pm: | |
"Sure, blame marijuana! It's driving people crazy all over the world."
Funny, here I thought the article was saying that it might have worsened the condition of a paranoid schizophrenic who was off her medication. I must have missed the clear and obvious references to Reefer Madness that blamed the entire thing on the devil's weed.
Clearly if you want to blame anyone it should be Stephen Knight for introducing the poisoned grapes nonsense into popular myths surrounding the Jack the Ripper case. That always drives me crazy too.
Dan Norder, editor, Ripper Notes |
Kris Law
Inspector
Username: Kris
Post Number: 412
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 19, 2004 - 1:35 pm: | |
Blaming marijuana for worsening the condition of her paranoid schizophrenic condition is the same as saying beer worsened her condition. Which may or may not be true, but let's be perfectly honest here . . . her condition was worsened by her being off her meds. And, at that point watching Captain Kangaroo could have worsened her condition.
Forgive me if I seemed flip, but I wasn't joking.
Saying that marijuana could have exacerbated her condition is sloppy and lazy. Contrary to some people's belief, marijuana doesn't create hallucinations.
-K |
Kris Law
Inspector
Username: Kris
Post Number: 413
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 19, 2004 - 2:03 pm: | |
Here's a link from BBC about doctors wanting to use marijuana to help with brain disorders like schizophrenia . . .
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/303438.stm
Now, let's move back to the grapes. Nowhere in that article does it say she gave her son grapes because she read it in a book about the Ripper. In fact it doesn't even say if she had any interest in the Ripper. Maybe her son, like many children, just liked grapes. I must have missed the clear and obvious reference to The Final Solution that blamed the entire thing on Stephen Knight.
-K |
Dan Norder
Inspector
Username: Dannorder
Post Number: 236
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, August 19, 2004 - 3:52 pm: | |
Kris wrote:
"I must have missed the clear and obvious reference to The Final Solution that blamed the entire thing on Stephen Knight."
No, you missed what should have been the clear and obvious sarcasm. But then maybe it's my fault for expecting everyone to understand that an outrageously stupid comment following other sarcastic remarks wasn't meant to be taken seriously.
Dan Norder, editor, Ripper Notes |
Kris Law
Inspector
Username: Kris
Post Number: 414
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 19, 2004 - 4:01 pm: | |
No, I did get that it was sarcasm, and my comment about Stephen Knight was meant to be sarcastic too, but, reading it back it does just sound harsh and rude, for which I apologize.
I do tend to get prickly when people get down on Marijuana, because I don't think it's any more dangerous than beer or vodka. But, that's my issue, not yours, and I shouldn't be ranting about it on here, when in reality it's pretty much off-topic.
I'm now sitting back, with a cool glass of water and some Thorzene, it shouldn't happen again.
So, I hope I haven't offended you Dan, it wasn't my intention.
-K
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Dan Norder
Inspector
Username: Dannorder
Post Number: 237
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, August 19, 2004 - 4:45 pm: | |
Hi Kris,
Don't worry about it. The marijuana angle isn't something I'd even consider after reading that article (especially since it was such a worthless waste of two people's lives), but then I have certain issues that I feel strongly about that would stand out like a sore thumb to me in an article about something else.
Dan Norder, editor, Ripper Notes |
Emmay
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 01, 2004 - 9:17 am: | |
Hi. I happened to be on the jury in this sad case. Ms Adele Stuart's psychiatrist said that in paranoid schizophrenia it can take weeks or months for the patient to feel the effects of not taking their medication. If they smoke marijuana, it can take a few short days.
While Ms Stuart did say she thinks she may have stopped taking her medication up to two months before she killed her son, she had filled her prescription faithfully during that time. She even bought her meds a week or so (from memory) before she went into her psychosis. There is no evidence to suggest she stopped taking them until about three days beforehand.
Ms Stuart was a loving, caring mother who has an extensive history of mental illness. She has been in a mental hospital since she killed her son well over two years ago, and has been experiencing the same psychosis with visual hallucinations all that time. Her silent tears every time somebody says Shaun's name are heart-breaking.
Ms Stuart had been smoking marijuana in increasingly large doses for weeks or months before this tragedy. She fought voices in her head and hallucinations of monsters for several days before killing Shaun. She believed that Jack the Ripper had killed her beloved boy, and when she saw his teeth grow long and sharp and his eyes turn yellow, she believed Jack the Ripper had possessed Shaun's body and was going to kill her.
After she killed Shaun, she denied that the body was her son's. She was confused about where Shaun was, alternating "my angel is gone" with "that's not my son, my son is at childcare". She thought that Bon Jovi was going to come for her.
I had the great unfortune of listening to the tape of her first police interview after Shaun's murder. She was not making much sense, but at one point she sang to her absent son in the way mothers sing to their babies.
Was marijuana partly to blame in this tragedy? If you believe the word of people who have studied this subject, and who gave evidence at the court case: YES! It was not the cause. Ms Stuart's mental illness was the cause. The drug just gave her a nice, firm push over the edge. |
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