Stolen From the Womb: Kentucky woman accused of murder, theft of fetus

[Tiassa]

It Happened Again

It happens every once in a while, and yes, it gets my attention. The psychopathology, even the biology, of it is fascinating:

A Kentucky woman was arrested Thursday on charges of kidnapping and murdering a pregnant woman, police said, and tests were being conducted to determine whether she took the victim's child.

Authorities at Bowling Green Medical Center called police Wednesday about a "suspicious birth" after a woman identified as Kathy Michelle Coy, 33, arrived at the hospital with a newborn boy claiming it was hers, said Bowling Green Police spokesman Jonathan Biven.

In an ensuing investigation, detectives located the remains of 21-year-old Jamie Stice in a wooded area off a highway in Oakland, Kentucky.

Investigators are currently performing forensic testing to determine whether the baby is a genetic match to Stice, Biven added.

(Silver)​

According to James Reynolds, reportedly the father of Stice's baby, the infant at BGMC is healthy; he called that outcome a miracle. Stice's due date was May 24. Her cousin, who is actually named Carolyn Miracle, told CNN that Stice and Reynolds were familiar with Coy, who is said to have entered their lives under the pretense of association with a diaper and clothing assistance program. Miracle also said the suspect, Kathy Coy, had informed people she was expecting a baby.

In certain sex- and reproductive-related issues, I refer argumentatively to a vague non-quantification, the power of nature and its potential to affect a woman's behavior. Often I tell people who are confident—and, occasionally, even smug—about the idea that their girlfriend or wife would abort a pregnancy to not underestimate what nature is doing to her after conception; do not be surprised if it isn't so clear an issue to her in the moment.

But this? In the first place, you have to be just flat-out fucking crazy to steal the fetus from the womb. Secondly, as pertains the power of nature: No. All bets are off. I cannot stand by anything even remotely superstitious to explain this.

To the other, I suppose the question is fascinating how such an alleged psyche comes to the condition it does. Is it structural? Was something like this bound to happen? If so, why this shape? Is this chronic mental illness? Why this focus, then? A slow-burning psychotic break? Again, how did it come to look as it does?

What happened? What is this phenomenon?
____________________

Notes:

Silver, Katie. "Kentucky police say suspect abducted, killed pregnant woman". Cable News Network. April 14, 2011. CNN.com. April 14, 2011. http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/04/14/kentucky.pregnant.killing/index.html

 

[pjdude1219]

there is really only one way to respond to such an act. what the fuck really?

 

[Read-Only]

I see nothing here to discuss. The crime was horrible! And the perp is quite obviously seriously mentally ill - crazy! What else is there to say????:shrug:

 

[Tiassa]

Because "evil" is insufficient

I see nothing here to discuss. The crime was horrible! And the perp is quite obviously seriously mentally ill - crazy! What else is there to say????:shrug:

Well ... just work with me here for a moment.

Okay, so imagine you're just driving along and suddenly there is this insane sculpture beside the road. You pull over to look at it, but at the same time you notice certain electrical phenomena. So you pull your Geiger counter out of the trunk, and lo and behold, this big-assed statue of something or another so lovingly rendered is also glowing hot radioactive.

Now, yes, what we have here is dangerous radioactivity.

We must contain it, deal with it in order to protect humanity, as such.

But at some point, don't we get to wonder at who did the outsize radioactive genitalia statue? Or, at least, how it came to be? The idea that there somehow came to be a giant, thirty-meter radioactive sculpture of genitalia right there randomly beside the highway.

Wouldn't you wonder?

The excruciating detail.

Wouldn't you at least wonder at the forces shaping so toxic a mass?

That's sort of what I'm getting at.

As one who measures sexual perversity as an expression of maturity according to focal organization in the question of polymorphous versus genital stimulation, the dimensions of this crime as a human behavior defy my ability to classify. Whether a biological impulse gone awry or a specific behavioral outcome—i.e., symbolism—I cannot even begin to fathom the dimensions.

When faced with a notion so suggestive of that amorphous superstition, evil, I prefer to wonder how it occurs in nature, because nature is not extraneous.

What brings this outcome?

 

[Crunchy Cat]

I wonder what the subjective experience is like... god damn I gotta have me that them thar fetus!

 

[YoYoPapaya]

It's really fckin sick and disgusting. I feel like vomiting every time i hear about one of these crimes.

 

[S.A.M.]

And its premeditated. She told people she was expecting a baby. She met and spoke with them while planning to kidnap and kill the woman and take her kid. Bizarre. What would those conversations have looked like?

 

[Bells]

I see nothing here to discuss. The crime was horrible! And the perp is quite obviously seriously mentally ill - crazy! What else is there to say????:shrug:

I think it is too easy to just fob it off as being 'crazy'.

When we imagine something that is so outside the possibility of normal, that is so vile and disgusting, we automatically assume that the person who did it must be crazy, because that's the only excuse there could be.

The level of premeditation, the detail..

I think she's just a horrible person who wanted something that someone else had and she decided to take it, no matter what.

We take too much comfort behind the notion of 'crazy'.. because it brings us comfort.

 

[YoYoPapaya]

I think the question is: "what kind of crazy?"
It would take one cold bastard to pull this off. Maybe a psychopath that thinks a child will make her look good or something.

 

[Read-Only]

Phooey!!! All the word-salad and head-scratching amounts to nothing. I repeat: it was a HORRIBLE crime and the woman was INSANE! End of story.

Trying to understand her motivations is akin to wondering why we named a particular color "blue" instead of "oraspa" or some such. Insane is insane - there's nothing rational or reasonable to fathomed by pondering it. :shrug:

 

[Bells]

And cold bastards do exist.

Cold bastards do things every day, that we would never associate with 'crazy'. Like the murderer who sliced the throats of sleeping children in Israel. No one would describe that individual as 'crazy'. So why do we automatically assume this woman is crazy?

Maybe it's time to start realising that some people are just cold bastards and stop making excuses that they must be crazy.

Having been in the criminal legal field for so long, I had found that it was too easy to just say 'crazy'. Some are crazy, without a doubt, but for many others it seems to be an excuse to separate us from them... In that some crimes are so awful that we say the perpetrator must be crazy because no one sane in our minds could do such a thing.. Such beliefs bring us comfort, as it distinguishes us from them. But there are some cold bastards out there. Like the father who dropped kicked his daughter because she was crying.. That isn't crazy. That's just a cold act of a criminal bastard. Crazy is just an excuse for some people, because they are not crazy.

 

[Bells]

Phooey!!! All the word-salad and head-scratching amounts to nothing. I repeat: it was a HORRIBLE crime and the woman was INSANE! End of story.

Trying to understand her motivations is akin to wondering why we named a particular color "blue" instead of "oraspa" or some such. Insane is insane - there's nothing rational or reasonable to fathomed by pondering it. :shrug:

Why do you assume she is insane?

After all, she had known the couple for a while. As well as the rest of the family. No one picked up she was this insane. Someone who is that insane can't hide it for any length of time.

So why do you assume she is insane?

 

[Read-Only]

Why do you assume she is insane?

After all, she had known the couple for a while. As well as the rest of the family. No one picked up she was this insane. Someone who is that insane can't hide it for any length of time.

So why do you assume she is insane?

Why do I ASSUME she is insane? And you also talk about cold-hearted people as if they were perfectly sane. It's quite obvious that your definition of insanity and mine are different.

What I see in people like that - and this woman - is that they are lacking a degree of human emotion that's required for a balanced (sane) mind. Sure, I'm aware that there are *many* different definitions of sanity. But the one I subscribe to holds that an unbalanced mind isn't fully sane. I'm sticking with mine and you are quite welcome to stick with yours.

 

[Killjoy]

What happened? What is this phenomenon?

Kentucky woman, she shines with her own kind of light...
:mufc:

 

[Bells]

Why do I ASSUME she is insane? And you also talk about cold-hearted people as if they were perfectly sane.

Good grief!

Do you assume someone cannot be sane and "cold-hearted"?

It's quite obvious that your definition of insanity and mine are different.

Yes.

You view it as being something that would describe someone who has done something you conceive as being so bad that they'd have to have been crazy to do it.

The level of premeditation involved in this, the deceit of those she knows by telling them she was expecting a baby...

While it is comforting to say she is 'insane', it doesn't wash. Some people are just arseholes.

What I see in people like that - and this woman - is that they are lacking a degree of human emotion that's required for a balanced (sane) mind.

Not really.

She didn't kill the baby and even took it to hospital to make sure it was healthy.

An uncaring person does not behave that way.

 

[wynn]

There is a similar scenario in Private Practice, in the final episodes of the second season.
The woman who wanted to steal a pregnant woman's baby was in psychotherapy and also lost her own child.
There are some suggestions there how any why such things happen.

 

[Lori_7]

i agree with bells. this is just an extreme case of narcissism and i think that's just a perspective more than a mental illness. and ok, if nobody else is going to say it, i will...god is dead. now, i don't think that, but i think a lot of other people do. and if your only accountability is to your own selfish desires and to society then really, what's stopping you? perhaps a police officer but only if you don't get away with it. i mean look at our society; we kill each other all the time. i'd like to know how many bombs went off around the world in the time it took me to type this. it doesn't seem to me like we value life, or we respect each other, or we respect our own bodies or each others, or that we have any regard for nature or the idea that there is anything greater or more important than ourselves. to me, our society seems more like a competition to see who can take the most at the expense of everyone else.

 

[Read-Only]

Good grief!

Do you assume someone cannot be sane and "cold-hearted"?



Yes.

You view it as being something that would describe someone who has done something you conceive as being so bad that they'd have to have been crazy to do it.

The level of premeditation involved in this, the deceit of those she knows by telling them she was expecting a baby...

While it is comforting to say she is 'insane', it doesn't wash. Some people are just arseholes.


Not really.

She didn't kill the baby and even took it to hospital to make sure it was healthy.

An uncaring person does not behave that way.

The whole problem here is that YOU are ASSUMING that I'm using the legal definition of insanity - which I am not.

Being mentally unbalanced does not preclude premeditation, only the legal definition of "temporarily insane" does that. Nor does having an unbalanced mind mean that every act committed by such a person is irrational.

 

[Bells]

The whole problem here is that YOU are ASSUMING that I'm using the legal definition of insanity - which I am not.

Being mentally unbalanced does not preclude premeditation, only the legal definition of "temporarily insane" does that. Nor does having an unbalanced mind mean that every act committed by such a person is irrational.

You're not getting what I meant.

Okay, I'll simplifly it.

Why do you think or assume she is mentally unstable or insane or have an unbalanced mind?

I'm not having a go at you or anything, or arguing with you about this. I just find it interesting that each time such a crime occurs, people are very quick to say 'well they must be insane'. And I have done it too in the past. So why do we assume or believe that is the case?

 

[Read-Only]

You're not getting what I meant.

Okay, I'll simplifly it.

Why do you think or assume she is mentally unstable or insane or have an unbalanced mind?

I'm not having a go at you or anything, or arguing with you about this. I just find it interesting that each time such a crime occurs, people are very quick to say 'well they must be insane'. And I have done it too in the past. So why do we assume or believe that is the case?

OK, I'll give it a shot. It's because we (I) think that people who do such things are not fully in control of their rational/emotional state of mind - because if they were, they would have not done things that were obviously so stupid and in many cases would point directly to them as the one who did the crime.

And again, the way I'm using the term "insanity" does not indicate an individual who's drooling at the mouth or hearing voices inside their head. They *may* display some/all those things but it's not a requirement to be considered "mentally unbalanced."

Question, would you consider someone like the Unibomber to be of fully sound mind? Ted wazzishisname was not considered insane from a LEGAL standpoint but sending out random bombs does not, in my mind, qualify him as a fully-rational individual.

Here's a short bit from Wikipedia about him: "He was born in Chicago, Illinois, where, as an intellectual child prodigy, he excelled academically from an early age. Kaczynski was accepted into Harvard University at the age of 16, where he earned an undergraduate degree, and later earned a PhD in mathematics from the University of Michigan. He became an assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley at age 25, but resigned two years later.

In 1971, he moved to a remote cabin without electricity or running water, in Lincoln, Montana, where he lived as a recluse while learning survival skills in an attempt to become self-sufficient.[2] He decided to start a bombing campaign after watching the wilderness around his home being destroyed by development.[2] From 1978 to 1995, Kaczynski sent 16 bombs to targets including universities and airlines, killing three people and injuring 23. Kaczynski sent a letter to The New York Times on April 24, 1995 and promised "to desist from terrorism" if the Times or The Washington Post published his manifesto. In his Industrial Society and Its Future (also called the "Unabomber Manifesto"), he argued that his bombings were extreme but necessary to attract attention to the erosion of human freedom necessitated by modern technologies requiring large-scale organization."

Once again, he didn't qualify for the LEGAL insanity defense (and I agree with that assessment) - but does he sound like a normal, rational person to you?