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What the hell is going on with all these child murders?

From: The Globe and Mail

In Quatsino, B.C., Jay Handel, 45, was charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of his six children, whose bodies were incinerated in a fire that destroyed their home.

In Toronto, Peter Currie, 40, was in custody after leading police to a rural area where the body of his two-year-old daughter was found with a neck wound.

In Houston, Andrea Yates, 37, was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole for at least 40 years for drowning her five children in a bathtub.

In McMinnville, Ore., Robert Bryant, 37, his wife and their four children were found dead of shotgun wounds in what appeared to be a murder-suicide committed by Mr. Bryant.

And the latest:

Girl, 15, charged in death of newborn

By JOHN SAUNDERS AND MELISSA LEONG

From Monday's Globe and Mail

A 15-year-old girl has been charged with second-degree murder in the death of her infant after she gave birth alone in the bathroom of her family's Brampton home on the weekend.

The baby girl, pronounced dead in hospital soon afterward, was slashed or stabbed in the neck, police said.

Murder trials are rare in such cases because Canadian law specifies a lesser offence, infanticide, where a mother deliberately causes the death of her newborn while she is "not fully recovered from the effects of giving birth" and "her mind is then disturbed."

Inspector Frank Roselli of the Peel homicide bureau said the teen is believed to have hidden her pregnancy from her family until the birth at about 5 p.m. on Saturday. Her parents "were alerted to the situation by noises coming from the bathroom area and almost immediately called 911," he said.

He had no information on whether the child was carried to term, he said.

Mother and child were taken to the William Osler Health Centre in Brampton, where the mother was still being treated late yesterday. She is to be in court on Wednesday morning for a bail hearing.

Police initially said the infant suffered "serious injuries" during the unassisted birth.

After receiving autopsy results yesterday, Insp. Roselli gave the cause of death as "sharp-force injury to the neck area." He would not describe the wound or how it is thought to have been inflicted.

A charge of second-degree murder means police allege that:

The killing was intentional, although not planned;

The child was born alive, even if fatally injured before or during birth;

The mother did not suffer the mental disturbance implied by a charge of infanticide.

Insp. Roselli said he expected questions about the charge.

"It's a determination that you have to make based on all of the merits of the case and it's sometimes a difficult choice to make, but basically we felt that, for this investigation, the intent [of the law] fitted with the murder charge," he said.

The accused girl's name was withheld because of her age.

A defendant so young most likely would be tried in youth court, where the maximum sentence for second-degree murder is seven years, no more than four to be served in a correctional centre and the rest in a community setting. The maximum for infanticide is two years.

It remains possible that a judge would order the teen tried in adult court.

Paul Stern, a Toronto lawyer not involved in the case, said the police can lay the charge they see fit but prosecutors have the last word in Ontario.