Postpartum Psychosis Tragedy: When the Health System Fails Mothers | ENDEVR Documentary

foreign [Music] [Music] call has been forwarded to an automatic voice message system [Music] I just need you to call me back please I really need to talk to you as soon as you get a minute if you could just call me back that would be great I love you bye [Music] I heard the voicemails that Carol left my mom the morning of May 20th my mom of course didn't get these voicemails till later in the day [Music] your call has been forwarded to an automatic voice message system [Music] anymore guys left I was so tired I think I really need some help I'm so scared things are so weird over here [Music] can you just can you call me call me back I just need you to call me back okay I love you bye [Music] it's absolutely heartbreaking to hear my sister it's so much he she was hurting so bad she needed help and unfortunately he didn't call me [Music] and I first heard that Carol harmed her daughters and you shoot sick I knew there's something wrong with her she would never harm her child you don't you don't do this on purpose [Music] who in the right mind could do this to their own kids who if there's a person out there I hope I never meet him but Carol wasn't that person to me [Music] thank you I'm recording Mommy Carol is one of the sweetest greatest people you would ever ever come and counter with she was a great mom she was always there for my daughters Carol was extremely beautiful she was not only beautiful but she was also very sweet she was very genuine what you see is what you get with her just very gentle even her voice is very soft I can't imagine Carol ever raising her voice Carol was an amazing mom she she loved her baby girls so much she found a cookie [Music] she always had either Jazzy or Sufi in her arms right so she adored her her kiddos foreign [Music] and I think that if she was available I would most certainly ask her to watch my kids for a few hours and so forth Just because I knew how gentle she was with her kids [Music] there was times when my son would go out to her house she would take him out to San Pedro to go see the boats she took my kids something that I've never even done to this day she took them out to go see the stars Carol's confer others there's probably one of the biggest things about her she she loves people she wants to help she was in the ccc's California Conservation Corps she was in the Army briefly she got honorably discharged for a problem with her hip she then moved on to the naval Reserve she was very ambitious always trying to educate herself reading books asking a lot of questions she was very curious about the professional world I know for sure that she did become a certified x-ray technician and she was very proud of that she had goals and ambitions eventually she wanted to run the radiology department [Music] she always got herself into something school she was taking online classes so she was still going to the university while feeding and breastfeeding and changing diapers and caring for them girls if she was ever feeling anything any type of depression or she's being sad or even stressed out um I I did not sense it I did not see it the only thing I saw in her was joy and pride and and just happy to be a mom and just happy to have her daughters [Music] there is no more a sacred relationship in our sense of how the world should work than the relationship between a mom and her child we we rely on that relationship it's what's kept the species going [Music] when we hear that a mother is taking the life of her child we're horrified the public is horrified they see her as the devil they see her as evil the initial reaction is one of rebulsion one of anger the actions so defy what we all hold as being the Pinnacle of Love Madonna and child the idea that a mother who's supposed to love her child would kill that child in any way harm and neglect that child is is really difficult to grasp until you understand what I've learned to understand is that it's absolutely not our fault [Music] thank you [Music] the numbers of women who suffer is shocking it is horrifying we now know that suicide is the leading cause of maternal death in the first year women are committing suicide and we're not still addressing this as a major public health issue foreign motherhood is full of paradoxical feelings I love this child this child is is you know getting on my nerves I love motherhood it's the hardest thing I've ever done that every day is a series of paradoxes which can build up to create no wind situations more stress that a person has in their lives and having multiple children having economic stress having work stress relationship stress then our ability to manage and hold all of that is severely compromised and so it's actually not surprising that some women snap [Music] [Applause] always kind of Hit the same kind of colors important we used to kind of have colors for them so if we cut it was purple yeah this color was yellow the most in my life thanks so much it was right everywhere they showed up they illuminated the place okay baby [Music] oh my God I'm so sorry baby I'm so sorry foreign this afternoon this driveway is where sorrow still lingers over here you will find a growing memorial for three young girls who were found dead in a bed and now their mother is facing criminal charges we know they're all in heaven we pray for my babies pray for Rudy and even pray for that woman which means she had a demon inside her that day the suspect in this case is 30 year old Carol Coronado Carol had called her mom saying she was going crazy when the grandmother came to help she found the bodies of her three grandchildren in a one bed Carol the grandmother said had been stabbing herself foreign Towers right now and go see Carol he's housed in the Medical Board inside the jail they visit her about the upcoming trial we have I'm looking for the right reason which I believe and our experts believe is that she's not guilty by reason of insanity yes the Act was done I don't think there's a real question as to who did the ACT we're not really arguing arguing that the the argument comes down to what was her State of Mind at the time of this incident you know everyone agrees that there's something going on with Carol something was going on at the time in this incident you know she wasn't herself the prosecutor Miss Spears and her team of police officers that are working on this case are very set on convicting her of first degree murder but what keeps me going is knowing that Carol wouldn't have done this you know knowing her as a person and knowing more and more about postpartum psychosis keeps me going it keeps me doing everything I can for the right result for her [Music] thank you I met Carol Coronado upon her arrival at Twin Towers Correctional Facility roughly maybe six days after her crime when I met her she was similar to a catatonic patient she appeared extremely depressed barely moved we had placed her in a suicide gown Kevlar material it's not comfortable most inmates ask right away how long am I going to be in the Gown when do I get out of the gown she didn't mention the Gown it's like it wasn't even there seemed very thin she looked like she had not been eating and even though she just had surgery and had been given medications you know to help her sleep it sounded like she hadn't slept in over a week and she looked like it the diagnosis that I gave her in layman's term is postpartum psychosis [Music] three psychiatrists who had seen her in those first five or six days and the consensus was that you know this is a very sick patient [Music] also I screened her for depression and it did appear that she had had depression after both of her pregnancies actually and you know wasn't treated so that actually elevates her wrist significantly during a third pregnancy so she she had that risk factor there [Music] Swami [Music] I said Auto Parts here I've been here for seven years okay [Music] a lot of people come through a lot of people come through for me this is the hardest part of the day is picking up you can getting ready to leave to go home I used to be in a rush to go home I couldn't wait to get home to my girls and now it's like the part that I missed the most is my high daddies my Smiles they used to run to me when I got home and I don't get none of that no more as a father I was kind of raised to work you know provide for your family we didn't really have no luxuries like we didn't have a lot of extras but we weren't like struggling we were okay I love the fact of having to provide for my family because that made me I love the fact that waking up in the morning coming to work because before I left before I left to work I would I would look around and I see my little girls and that that was my energy that was my power to to push and I pushed for them I pushed it's hard for parents with one child you know let alone two and then three and then back to back it's very it's very hard Carol did most of the duties when it came to my daughters I would help her but she did mainly 95 of it now I did like going to work and and and you know providing but she did most of the maintaining you know so it was very difficult for Carol as well for it it was very difficult [Music] Carol's babies were very close together um Sophia and yazzy were 14 months apart and yazzy and Zenia were only 13 months apart shortly after they got engaged she found out she was pregnant and um she was so excited about it she'd send pictures and tell me when her doctor's appointments were and oh we gotta go see the baby today she was always super excited about it thank you when Sophia came it was probably the happiest day I've I don't know that I've ever seen her happier she was full of joy she was definitely very excited about meeting her holding her she didn't want to let go of her baby it was her baby I don't think she had any difficulties with it she didn't complain about being overly uncomfortable [Music] yay [Music] [Applause] [Music] I don't know that she was necessarily ready to have more babies I don't necessarily think any of them were planned I think they were kind of more surprises welcome surprises [Music] [Applause] [Music] when Carol became pregnant with Yasmin she was having problems maybe because they were too close together I don't know there is points where she was bent over and she couldn't get up in the kitchen I had to help her put her in bed I didn't notice any changes in Carol after Yazzie other than the fact that she was tired but you know I'm I'm a mom too I'm tired all the time she didn't seem sad I mean I I know that she was very very stressed because the kids were so close in age my kids are two years apart so I I understood what she was going through when you have little kids but she was always very patient she would never yell at the girls Carol did confide in me that it was very difficult for her because she was trying to better herself she was trying to finish her bachelor's degree she was trying to do a lot of things that were already difficult as it was and still trying to be a mother and a wife when you know she was with the children all day Rudy was working and when he would come home she would expect him to take over it so she could try to do things make dinner or study or do whatever she needed to do but Rudy expected certain things his mother was a stay-at-home mom and so he expected dinner to be set and to take care of the kids and he would go to work and come home and things should be done [Music] when Carol was pregnant with Zenia we went to a baby shower and she was she was already she was probably like seven months or so and she couldn't walk and so then I looked at her and then I said are you okay um and and then she says yeah she's like I get a lot of pain and she's like it it happened with my second pregnancy and and I don't know what it is but it's like I can't um like almost like she was crippled because she was um limping and she couldn't walk straight Carol was putting a lot of postures out there the third baby when Xenia came into the picture she just was tired more tired and hungry she would say all the time Mom I'm tired I'm hungry extinia was real hard on her and then she fell into like a depression [Music] we argued a little more than Carol a newborn shot in the end and you know the lack of sleep the lack of rest and plus it's the third child it's not it's not the first and the second so it's a lot more intense I was I was nervous for her and I was nervous about Zenia coming so quickly after yazzy I mean that's stressful on anybody Rudy didn't help too much so I was really hoping that would change after Xenia so she could at least get a little bit more sleep than she was getting sometimes would go over there and help him out and talk to him and tell him hey you have to help your wife you have to be a team player it's okay for a man to wash a dish it's okay for a man to change a diaper more Angry maybe towards Rudy like she would describe he would get upset with her when the babies woke him up in the middle of the night so she had to be on constant baby Duty which made her more tired [Music] as I looked as I do look back at the whole situation I wish I would have done more over at to help to help her to to reliever of duties [Music] yes he was a good wife she was she was a good woman she was a good woman she was always attentive of everything she was always there she was she helped out a lot she helped out a lot she was a better wife than I was a husband she was a better wife than I was a husband she was a better person than me she's a way better person than me we went through his to went through this psychotic disease and it's it ruined both of our lives perinatal illness Knows No Boundaries strike anyone Rich poor male female it doesn't matter what culture you're from What ethnicity how old you are no one is of you [Music] there is a full spectrum of mental illnesses or mental health struggles that arise in the in the aftermath of of childbirth there's the baby blues that happen when the hormones are just crashing and burning after you have a baby you'll go from a real high to a real low where you're suddenly weepy and just uncontrollably sad the baby blue which is very common among women about three out of four women who give birth are going to experience this symptoms usually go away in two to three weeks aside from that there's the more serious postpartum depression that sets in for a percentage of the population and it's generally within the first six weeks one of the Hallmark characteristics of postpartum depression is the inability to sleep deprivation is absolutely key sleep deprivation is used as a torture technique and so sleep deprivation is one of the key risk factors then one of the other ways in which we see postpartum depression present is with panic attacks women feel as though they can't cope they feel totally overwhelmed in some severe cases women feel suicidal and they're not able to take care of their baby postpartum psychosis is at the far end of that spectrum of mental illnesses it happens in one or two women out of every thousand babies that are born it's a common misconception that postpartum psychosis is just really bad depression but baby blues doesn't get worse and then it's depression and then it gets worse and then it's psychosis they're different mental illness is a beast and postpartum is a nasty [ __ ] the words postpartum depression to me mean living hell I had never heard of the term postpartum depression and when this baby came around it was I was hit by a bus it hit me like a ton of bricks I went in working 80 hours doing well I came out wanted to kill myself I noticed I was really irritable I felt down who was angry I would lash out I'm experiencing daily anxiety attacks something I'd never experienced in all of my 40 years the anxiety just kept getting worse and worse and it was just these constant thoughts that you just could not shut up in your own mind that was part of the living hell and it would be anything from like I said the baby wipe to not wanting the kid to having to make dinner to doing the laundry so she's crying again until I got a feeder do I gotta get up my husband's coming home people are visiting I'm exhausted he would cry I would cry and we would just cry together [Music] I fell five million feet down I wanted to be the mother that I had always dreamed of being and instead of being able to be that mother I was on my knees and I could hardly function my wife would get into her depressed States and she would basically just not take care of herself my daughter even the animals in the house like the dogs and cats wouldn't get fed like my daughter would be still in the same diaper since I left for work in the morning I stopped eating I lost 55 pounds in two months but I also was really struggling with intrusive thoughts about harming my baby I would be holding her and I would think I wonder if I just like banged her head into the counter and then I'd be like what what do you mean like I don't want to bang her head into the counter I would pass a an electrical cord and I would suddenly imagine it around my baby's neck I would pass a microwave I would imagine putting the baby in the microwave any possible harm these thoughts are alien to these women it's not that they really want to do it and in fact they feel terrible they are just tortured I was horribly ashamed and really quite afraid of telling anyone I kept the scariest of the images and thoughts to myself and it was a horrible deep Secret and all I could think of was if I just close my eyes and go to sleep she'll be fine my husband and my mother are here to take care of her I did my job I brought her into this world I am not equipped to take care of her my job was just to be a vessel and bring her here there's no way I can even try to take care of this young baby most women feel like they're going off the deep end they have absolutely no idea what's happening to them and again the shame of feeling depressed at a time when you're expected to feel really happy tends to exacerbate the problem of postpartum depression women tend not to name it they tend not to talk to their doctors or even their their spouses about it and we blame ourselves and we think there's something wrong with us and we silence ourselves and the stigma piles on and it piles on and it piles on and I'm not going to say out loud that I don't feel connected to my child I'm not going to say out loud that I don't feel attached I'm not going to tell you that I'm terrified to be a mother that I'm afraid that I made the worst decision that my child would be better off without me I'm not going to say any of those things [Music] things [Music] the father of those three young girls allegedly murdered by their mother in Torrance came face to face with his wife in court today for the first time since that family tragedy No cameras were allowed in court but reporters were Carol Coronado was brought out in a wheelchair we watched as Rudy Coronado shook uncontrollably and wiped away tears every time her name was mentioned this obviously was a big story the public was very interested uh there are hardly ever stories like this where a mother is accused of killing her own children I just want to thank everybody for their support everybody I first found out about the case when my boss called me in the evening and she told me that to turn on the news and I turned on the news and started watching some of the facts of the case cases aren't typically assigned personally like this particular case was usually they just arrive on my desk and I prosecute them from that but given the media attention to the case and given the other difficulties of Prosecuting this particular case she offered me the option of Prosecuting it and I did want to take it I mean those little girls deserved my efforts to get them Justice Coronado has pleaded Not Guilty by reason of insanity but the prosecutor she's accusing Coronado of planning the murders even though her family insists she was a good and loving mother I know Carolyn she would never ever in a million years do anything like that to no one and I'm not again I don't have a lick of hate for her I love her that's the mother of my children and she doesn't know what she did that's why I'm gonna stand behind her one thousand percent because she had no she didn't do it is a disease out there that destroys families hurt there was a lot of signs that I didn't know how to read this is the reason why we need to bring awareness to it because I was never educated on nothing like this I didn't have a clue we need to bring awareness to this disease because it is a disease out there that needs to be known for everybody to save more lives save more babies save more families thank you guys for being here today thank you thank you Rudy was the victim he was the family member of the children who were killed and yet he wasn't calling her evil or anything and and distancing himself from her and showing anger or anything he was standing by her I was surprised I'd really never seen a case like that I'm doing people affected by the postpartum psychosis they're not they're not themselves anymore they don't know what's real they don't know what's fake and there's no way Carol could have hurt her babies knowing that they were her babies it not a chance Carol when I went and visit her at the twin towers and trying to find out what actually happened when you can't talk because of things being tape recorded she goes Mama her voices I went like what voices Carol because I'm interested now what voices just check her head and all of them can't talk someone was telling her to kill the children so of course that's lingering in my head like that happened to me but when I had that tell me and tell me until my child when I was breastfeeding I didn't take action so like I said I don't understand if it's hereditary yeah I had a symptom of that postpartum psychosis is an awful illness to have foreign it will occur very abruptly symptoms include confusion they may not know where they are or what day it is these are women who have a complete break with reality in that they are hearing voices or even seeing delusion seeing things that aren't there they lose the ability to distinguish between what's reality and what's just a hallucination there are delusions associated with postpartum psychosis sometimes it's about the baby being evil sometimes mother is feeling terribly inadequate postpartum psychosis is a psychiatric emergency and these women must be separated from their babies because we don't really know what's going on in their minds the statistics are that about four percent of these women will commit infanticide and about five percent of these women will commit suicide foreign I've never heard about postpartum psychosis Norm were we ever spoken to about that after Shane was born postpartum psychosis I had never heard of that um in fact until I don't I don't even know four five six months ago when I started looking into postpartum depression after my wife was was uh was dead I suffered postpartum psychosis my first child in 1980 during my first prenatal visit when I saw my Midwife I told her I had done some pretty crazy things after Allison was born and I was hospitalized in the psychiatric unit and her advice at the time was you don't have to worry about that happening again I had a daughter named Melanie who wanted a baby more than life itself and when Melanie delivered her baby she went into postpartum psychosis immediately I had no idea how deadly it was I had no idea how many mothers had killed their children under the influence of postpartum psychosis I had no idea that I wasn't going to be able to save my daughter everything really was picture tell Michael at nine months little did I know that that was going to drive me completely insane and that's what happened look I really only noticed anything a little less than two weeks prior to their deaths it happened so quickly it really started after she took a birth control pill and she was never the same person from then on extreme paranoia abnormal anxiety that I've never witnessed in my wife I started to think that Michael was the devil and that it was really my calling that I needed to drown him [Music] I remember kneeling begging God to tell me what to do and [Music] um and um filled up the bathtub with lukewarm water and I just placed him down until he died [Music] it seemed like Melanie was determined to die she said oh Mommy I'm such a bad mother the baby doesn't deserve to have a mother as bad as I am and I don't I shouldn't live she checked in a hotel and she went up to the 2013 floor I don't really want to know and she jumped out of a window [Music] my wife certainly I believe she did in the end take her life and Shane's life because she was suffering from postpartum psychosis just the fact that there was not enough information that could have prepared us for what was going on as a failure you know with our system my wife is dead my kids have no Mom what I want to tell guys out there or husbands if you know or you feel something's off you need to go talk to somebody you need to go get help and I would go even so far as to say you need to get her in the car laughs like right [ __ ] then and go somewhere like a hospital you want to go back Harold's house where she kind of grew up sure right now we're in Compton Compton's still Compton still not a safe place Carol grew up around the corner they were like the little white the white kids in the neighborhood she was in the Carson area [Music] I've known Carol over 20 years she was a sweet quiet little girl she would sit to herself play by herself [Music] mother for a sweet thing she was very obedient is this Carol's old house where she was when she grew up Miss Greenland yeah I think he used to look this way that was all beat up like this and then here's this house over here every time we'll come by here she would either start crying or she or she or she'd kind of go like this at this house right here he said she she said she got molested in this house right here she said she was like five years old so yeah we'll come by this house we would come by the street right here and shoot either shrivel up or if we came walking she would run past this fat like like a little girl like she would have flashbacks of when she was young Carol did have some traumatic events in her life she was molested a couple different times once by a family member she was had a gang rape scenario in the when she was in the Army briefly to my knowledge she didn't report it to anybody but she did tell us about it she was always stuck in the past of all the traumatic things that happened to her so every time something happened she would always compare it to something that happened in the past at her past she was she was real fearful of [Music] we know now the science is there that there is a significant correlation between Early Childhood trauma and later psychotic illness I think we have to look back at her psychiatric history her trauma history so that we can understand how did she get from this place where she gave birth to this child that she really wanted to the events that occur you know what's so fascinating about this case and tragic of course at the same time is that there were three babies lost right not just one and because it's three babies and not one one vilify her three times as much instead of recognizing that that's a risk factor they were all under three and what Mom doesn't understand and a woman with mental illness a woman who was seriously mental ill I mean you're familiar with Carol's case you've spoken with Rudy um you're very well versed in you know her own trauma history and it's like a textbook I mean she checks all the boxes she has first of all was hearing you know voices from the time she was age five has been a witness to domestic violence has been repeatedly you know sexually abused gang raped and so all of us can only withstand so much when I look at the facts around Carol's case the mental illness piece actually isn't just the psychosis it's every bit of the baggage that she brought with her into the work of parenting you know who would have thought that it'd be a great idea to have a woman who had as much trauma as she did as a child at home by herself with a two and a half year old a one-year-old and a newborn I mean who should be alone in the house with a two and a half year old or one-year-old and a newborn for hours at a time that's a prescription for disaster and yet we expect this of mothers every day I mean who Among Us is so hearty and healthy and strong that we can go into parenting three little little kids in isolation that way it's a system that's set up for failure the expectation that moms can do this alone and that they don't need support needs to change it's that expectation that mother is motherhood is a solitary sport that needs to be shifted it's hard for any of us who haven't experienced this or lived with this firsthand to like understand how could it how could this happen yeah and yet at the same time I think we can understand if we put ourselves in Carol's shoes maybe that could have been me like I wasn't such a strong mom when I had my babies it was so hard so it could have been me it could have been me yeah now thinking back knowing about postpartum I I see the signs now she was getting depressed just about a month or two before the incident her eyes were drooping and she just kept saying oh man Robin I'm so tired she would just describe her nights as soon as she got sentient down yes you would wake up and then yazzy screaming would cause Rudy to wake up and then he would yell at her which would then wake up Xenia and then now she has two babies to deal with it was rough I told her I was like you need to get him to help you in May I sense that Carol was having was very overwhelmed she was depressed she was trying to do the best she could she was trying to help put the girls in daycare and go back to work because that was the only way that she would be able to further her annual salary foreign she didn't like where they were living they were living in a back house that was a garage converted into a room you know a room and a half it was very small it wasn't a place for the girls to play in the front yard given the childhood that she dealt with she wanted more for her children she wanted to give them a safe environment to grow up in her children were her motivation the week before my son's birthday party she was there she only had the baby because Sophia and yazzy were with their godmother she's like oh I'm just so tired I just needed some help she was very physically but I didn't think she was there mentally she was rude she didn't hold Xenia it seemed like she was not Carol days before it happened she was acting weird going outside and shutting off the shutting off the power to the house one day she jumped on me the day before she jumped on me and she was not a violent person she's not a physical person a day before when she was at my house even the look in her face her eyes were dilated I remember telling my daughter her eyes look funny but never have I imagined that they were funny because something she was going through assistant [Music] your call has been forwarded to an automatic voice message system she was acting weird since the morning he says we woke up she was acting weird smoker screamed like a crazy person you know and I didn't know how to deal with it or how so I I just kind of walked out and called your mom [Music] I feel and it kept ringing rain [Music] [Music] I need help I'm just nervous I've been having anxiety I can't sleep everything just feels really wrong I think I just I just need you to call me back when you have a second okay I love you it's a day of I was supposed to watch the baby oh let me watch it Sophia and the baby she was supposed to bring him over so I could watch them and I have killed because I taught myself if I would have had a car I could have picked them up and they would still be here [Music] your call had been forwarded to an automatic voice message system [Music] this morning and I I don't know what to do anymore we're running out of money and slapped up so tired in the afternoon I was outside working on the car in the afternoon and I went to the auto parts still getting it's been apart for the car but before I left I called her mom again and told her that she was acting weird because I was acting real weird I get off work at 4 15. I'm parked in the driveway I went to in the house and she's new but I said Carol you okay the girls are dressing all three laying on the bed and I thought they were all three sleep I said oh and I hugged her how about you take care of all what was on a good day Mom her mom called screaming with me across the street and she didn't want me to go in the house and told me girl would kill my daughter and I went inside Carol was naked Holy Night and I wanted a kid I wanted a kid but I don't know what's that she backed up and went around that bed she did have a knife in her hand she was an animal backed up in the corner that's how I'm gonna say it she's going come on come on look at me Rudy I never seen my daughter act like that she's up on her Hodges and three kids the three children there and she went like this she took a breath she lift up her last breath and she stabbed herself Carol had a pretty significant suicide attempt she actually ruptured the sack around her heart she got pretty close actually to her heart so that tells us she wanted to die right away in in a surprising number of cases of mothers who killed their children there's also an attempt at suicide it's all a product of a decision that the mom is has has made that she's failed in her job and that she has to kill herself and then this again distorted thinking about what a good mom would do if she's actually going to kill herself which would be to protect her children by taking them with her and it's a pattern was recognized because the crime of killing the children is so heinous and shocking that we ignore the suicide attempt we just sort of yeah it was like not even a serious attempt but we we actually strip ourselves then of the ability to understand these cases that the Genesis of the crime comes from the mom's decision that she can't go on anymore foreign it's been over a year since we started on Carol's case and we're prepared for trial at this point important case life is on the line here and it it's basically an area of law that's really not touched a lot it's not seen a lot and I don't think the laws are necessarily in line with what the defense is so we're hoping that we can get the right result and change things change the way that it's seen and maybe things will change in the future that's what we're hoping we're hoping for a change in the law although people will describe this country as the most civilized country in the world when it comes to issues of postpartum depression psychosis resulting in the death of a child we're backward we're not Progressive we're regressive the United Kingdom Canada Australia and 29 other European countries have infanticide laws and these infanticide laws provide for the biological vulnerability of childbirth if a woman kills her baby under one year of age and she is found to have a mental illness she's charged with manslaughter instead of homicide and she's sent to a psychiatric hospital here in the United States we think of these issues very very differently and the laws are in direct conflict with how we think about psychosis and what we know about postpartum psychosis as mental health professionals [Music] the way that the criminal justice system responds to mental illness is to have a statute every state has its own statute for deciding who's insane and who's not if you're insane you have a 100 defense against the charge of of homicide or of murder right so the stakes are really high for the criminal justice system because you're going to walk away with a not guilty for reasons of insanity that possibility makes many states so nervous that they have clung to a 19th century definition of insanity foreign [Music] about half of our states have something called the McNaughton statute and what that states is that in order to be found mentally ill the person did not know right from wrong at the time of the crime [Music] these laws assume that a person who is in the throes of deep mental illness is actually capable of thinking logically about right and wrong and from the medical point of view by definition somebody who is in the throes of this profound psychotic episode is not capable of rational thought our doctors laugh at it when we tell them oh this is how you decide who's insane and who's sane there were two phases to this trial the first was the guilty phase to determine whether Carol was guilty of committing the murders and then the sanity phase let's go ahead on the record now people versus Coronado as Coronado is present represented by Mr Allen and we have Miss spear here for the people certainly this is one of the most heinous crimes I've seen and I've seen quite a lot in 10 years but the those little girls they were absolutely slaughtered I actually went to the girls autopsies and [Music] those girls are babies and see babies laid out on a cold slab like that is just absolutely terrifying absolutely terrifying and something I will never ever forget the prosecutor had investigators describe the knives they found including three knives laid out on a table she's accusing Coronado of planning the murders we heard from coroners and evidence related to blood splatter and autopsies it's just a hard day overall seeing all the photos and the evidence Carol's demeanor and emotions changed very drastically and very rapidly when she hears something because for her it's like the first time she's hearing it and you know not having any memory of the incident when you're confronted with some of these issues it's very traumatizing to her and she just doesn't no and doesn't believe that she could have done this [Music] foreign [Music] we got to court this morning we were supposed to go right into our closing arguments but Carol had some type of psychotic break you know she's confused she's asking for her mom asking for her kids and asking for Rudy at this time the court reporter cannot hear uh Mr Allen make a record because of the disruptions by Miss Coronado at this time the court is going to order that she'd be removed from the courtroom stop stop saying my name while you're doing that go ahead and make a record your honor during the course of the morning my clients excuse me more despondent let's talk I need to talk more with John confused excuse me in her overall Behavior has altered I stop stop all right let's go ahead and remove her move her from the door please [Music] she was lifted and removed by handcuffs they lifted her off the ground she screamed through the hallway it was terrifying you know I've never never seen her like this before I don't believe she understands the nature of why she's there anymore she's having a severe psychotic break I declared a doubt as to her competency and the judge didn't find substantial evidence of that today she feels alone you know she feels trapped and I'm afraid for her safety and her her well-being right now people versus Carol Ann Coronado ba 425-234 the court finds as follows the court finds the defendant guilty of murder upon Zenia C guilty of murder upon Yasmin see guilty of murder upon Sophia C the court finds the murder to be in the first degree Carol Coronado gave up her right to a jury trial instead deciding to have a judge decide her fate today that judge decided that she was guilty of first-degree murder in the deaths of her three young daughters during her last court appearance a week ago Coronado had a breakdown and had to be dragged from the courtroom kicking and screaming and crying out for her mother husband and children do you have a couple minutes yeah okay let me just ask you to can you give us just your impression of of the judge's decision today your attorney was saying you know he it was not really unexpected the decision today she physically did the action but it she mentally didn't do it she lost her mind she lost her mind it tears me apart because it's my little girls that I lost I lost my whole family my three little girl my three little girls and Carol she didn't mean to do that I I strongly believe that the sanity phase of the trial that begins tomorrow since the D.A is not seeking the death penalty in this case the sanity phase will decide whether Carol Coronado spends the rest of her life in prison or sent to a mental hospital I've never spoken to miss Coronado personally so it's very difficult for me to give you an accurate description but from what I've read about her in her employment records her records in the Army the military seemed nice and she seemed like a nice lady I don't know that I can tell you exactly how you get from being this nice lady to committing these types of heinous crimes [Music] it was hard to see from behind her but her lawyer says Carol Coronado did shed a few tears deputies were describing what they found in her bedroom in Carson in May of last year when one Deputy saw her he said quote she just had a Blank Stare on her face another said quote I don't know she knew we were there or not they saw her in a state of confusion you know and that confusion is very important for major depressive disorder postpartum psychosis the Blank Stare everything that shows she's just not all there well my role in the trial was to help explain Carol's State of Mind at the time that she took the life of her three children I met with Carol three or four times it was very clear to me that with the birth of each of her children her perinatal mental illness became more and more severe it was very clear to me after I left her the first time that this was a woman who had suffered with postpartum psychosis foreign [Music] Towers Correctional Facility once a week over the course of about a year in my professional opinion Carol Coronado was psychotic at the time of her crime the two psychiatrists who saw her in the first few days both you know said she was psychotic I mentioned in trial that we kept her on suicide watch for over a year in a gown with 24-hour one-to-one observation and her risk for suicide was one of the highest if not the highest at the time the twin towers for any of the 15 000 inmates you're looking at somebody who is in need of severe psychiatric treatment [Music] [Music] she needs help civilizing somewhere where they can get her help she's a role model person she just this disease took over her mind and she needs mental help the court finds as follows the record should reflect that the court did consider rule 4.423 subsection B subsection 2. that the defendant was suffering from a mental or physical condition that significantly reduced culpability for the crime the difficulty the court had with that rule was that although the court found the defendant was suffering from a mental or physical condition the language significantly reduced culpability is something where the court believed it lacked she is ineligible for probation and probation is denied the defendant is sentenced to three consecutive life terms of imprisonment without the possibility of parole spend the rest of her life behind bars for murdering her three daughters her lawyer says she suffered from postpartum psychosis well today the judge said that he believes Coronado needs treatment but he said quote that treatment will have to be in State Prison I Can't Tell You Why the judge wasn't able to to understand the role that mental illness played in Carol's case it just doesn't seem like a just outcome to me I I don't know how it's serving Justice really at all to have her spend the rest of her life in prison [Music] not good told me to tell the family that she loves you guys and it's not your fault I failed you know I failed Carol I don't know what else I needed to do you know I mean obviously I respect the judge in his opinion but he he got it wrong I mean I just I think the evidence was there I just don't know what was missing so when you look at this and you look at postpartum psychosis and you recognize that it's real it's placed right in front of our face and there's no other rational explanation and they still won't they still won't even consider it this incredibly difficult case of Carol Coronado shows the need for there to be a law there is a gap when the judge says I understand the individual was suffering from mental health challenges but we don't have any regulations to address this and you're going to rot in a jail cell for the rest of your life and we're not going to address the actual issue makes no sense to me as a civil society we failed her twice we failed her twice when she reached out and knew she needed help we weren't there for her and then to know that she's facing a life in prison is is gut-wrenching and we have two broken systems a broken medical system and a broken legal system [Music] thank you the idea of Carol being in jail it's unreal it hurts me I I wish I could help her she needs help it pains me it pains me to know that she's sitting there because guess what it can happen to you it can happen to me it can happen to anyone it's unbearable and it's and it's something that we should fight for her I have sympathy for what happened to miss Coronado leading up to the murders she was in an extraordinarily bad situation her family was financially strapped for cash she was stuck caring for these kids every single day so I have sympathy for her situation up until the time of the murders but obviously I have no sympathy for a person who commits those types of crimes it seems obvious to me having studied these cases for so many years that the right response is one of empathy Because unless we try to put ourselves in their shoes we strip ourselves of the ability to stop crimes like this from happening in the future so if we care about the babies if we care about the babies then we need to actually put ourselves in her shoes and figure out what she would have needed in order to be able to succeed at parenting under these circumstances [Music] I am not spending my life behind Boris I think I've been given a great opportunity judge who found Me Not Guilty by reason of insanity I went back to school I got my master's degree in nursing I wrote my thesis on screening for postpartum mental illness I think my story is one of Hope I've lived that horrible story and I've been able to overcome it [Music] my wish would be that we could look at these women differently and that we stop blaming women and punishing them for an illness without recognizing that they are truly ill and that is it is the illness that's driving their behavior not them foreign what we need to do is care for these women through the mental health system we need to get them treatment because we know that when these women are properly treated they're going to get well we're going to get well [Music] I think [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: ENDEVR

Views: 494,650

Keywords: Free documentary, documentaries, full documentary, hd documentary, documentary - topic, documentary (tv genre), Business Documentary, postpartum depression, mental health, postpartum psychosis, postpartum depression story, mental health awareness, not carol documentary

Id: AcgUd0-2cl8

Length: 77min 35sec (4655 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 11 2023