Nab mom, lover over kid killings
An Illinois woman and her boyfriend were charged yesterday with murdering her three children, who drowned when the car they were in mysteriously plunged into a lake in September.
Police did not give a motive but said there were parallels to the chilling case of Susan Smith, who let a car with her two kids roll into a lake because her lover didn't want children.
Amanda Hamm, 27, and Maurice Lagrone Jr., 28, were arrested Tuesday and hit with nine counts of first-degree murder - three for each dead child.
They are being held on $5 million bail while prosecutors prepare to present their case to a grand jury next week.
"We have to speak for those three children," said DeWitt County Sheriff Roger Massey.
The youngsters - Christopher, 6, Austin, 3, and Kyleigh, 23 months - were pulled from 4 feet of water in Clinton Lake on Sept. 2.
Suspicion of foul play soon surfaced, along with comparisons to Smith, who is serving a life sentence for drowning her sons in South Carolina in 1994.
The couple never explained why they were at the lake, why they weren't in the car, how the vehicle slipped off the shore or why they didn't jump in to the shallow water to save the children.
"We recognized early on that it was not an accident," Massey said.
To disprove the accident theory, investigators sent the car back into the lake several times to examine how it would sink.
Friends of the couple said they were stunned by the charges.
"The last time I talked to Amanda Hamm, she was on the psychiatric ward of the hospital because she had tried to hang herself," neighbor Emily Strange told the Daily News.
She said Hamm and Lagrone, who was not the father of any of the children, seemed genuinely devoted to the kids and crushed by their deaths.
"She talked about how much she missed them and wanted them back," Strange said. "I can't believe it, but I can't believe how anybody could kill their children." Originally published on December 11, 2003
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/kr/20031211/lo_krnewyork/nabmomloveroverkidkillings
An Illinois woman and her boyfriend were charged yesterday with murdering her three children, who drowned when the car they were in mysteriously plunged into a lake in September.
Police did not give a motive but said there were parallels to the chilling case of Susan Smith, who let a car with her two kids roll into a lake because her lover didn't want children.
Amanda Hamm, 27, and Maurice Lagrone Jr., 28, were arrested Tuesday and hit with nine counts of first-degree murder - three for each dead child.
They are being held on $5 million bail while prosecutors prepare to present their case to a grand jury next week.
"We have to speak for those three children," said DeWitt County Sheriff Roger Massey.
The youngsters - Christopher, 6, Austin, 3, and Kyleigh, 23 months - were pulled from 4 feet of water in Clinton Lake on Sept. 2.
Suspicion of foul play soon surfaced, along with comparisons to Smith, who is serving a life sentence for drowning her sons in South Carolina in 1994.
The couple never explained why they were at the lake, why they weren't in the car, how the vehicle slipped off the shore or why they didn't jump in to the shallow water to save the children.
"We recognized early on that it was not an accident," Massey said.
To disprove the accident theory, investigators sent the car back into the lake several times to examine how it would sink.
Friends of the couple said they were stunned by the charges.
"The last time I talked to Amanda Hamm, she was on the psychiatric ward of the hospital because she had tried to hang herself," neighbor Emily Strange told the Daily News.
She said Hamm and Lagrone, who was not the father of any of the children, seemed genuinely devoted to the kids and crushed by their deaths.
"She talked about how much she missed them and wanted them back," Strange said. "I can't believe it, but I can't believe how anybody could kill their children." Originally published on December 11, 2003
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/kr/20031211/lo_krnewyork/nabmomloveroverkidkillings
