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Child Murder in New England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Randolph Roth
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Extract

Historians often despair of their ability to write histories of child murder, because the crime was easy to commit and conceal. Even today, coroners can determine only in rare instances whether a deceased infant or newborn was suffocated or died of natural causes (Knight 1996: 441–44, 345–60). No reliable test can determine, once decomposition has begun, whether a deceased newborn ever took a breath; and suffocation, unlike strangulation, leaves no physical marks, unless excessive pressure is applied to the face or lips. A murderer needed but a few moments to smother a child and could claim that the child was stillborn, had been accidentally overlain, or had died from natural causes. Unwanted pregnancies could be kept from public notice with the help of family or friends, especially pregnancies that came to term in late winter or early spring, when expectant mothers could live quietly out of the public eye or stay wrapped in heavy clothing. In New England, a large proportion of suspected neonaticides—nearly a quarter—occurred in April or early May, “mud season” in the Yankee vernacular,when people emerged from their long winter “hibernation.”

Type
Special Issue: Bloody Murder
Information
Social Science History , Volume 25 , Issue 1: Special Issue: Bloody Murder , spring 2001 , pp. 101 - 147
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 2001 

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