Nanny Suspected In Stabbing Deaths Of 2 Children Remains Hospitalized

[OttoVonBismarck]

I have to say these yuppie parents in this story are exactly the kind of parents I hate. The mother was smart and successful, she was a physician before she became a stay at home mom. Once she had kids redefined her life and started liveblogging all the little things her kid did and etc. Having a kid was the best thing I ever did, but it's a very normal, human thing. I see it in that context, it's important to me. But it's not worthy of blogging to the world. I also don't think it sets a good example for a woman who is a trained physician to leave the work force and act as though parenting is a "job." So basically yeah, these are precisely the kind of douchebag yuppie parents I hate.

But we are talking about two of their kids being stabbed to death, so I do think there is a line where you say, "yeah, these are the annoying fuck types everyone hates, but their kids were just murdered and probably not a good time to make a joke ragging on the parents for their parenting style." I disagree with their "lifestyle" without thinking we need to make jokes about it after their kids have just been murdered.

The nanny stabbed herself too (it's a shame when these suicides go bad and don't get finished up properly), so the mom actually said in her 911 call something like "something has happened to my kids and their nanny", so initially I think the mom in her extreme shock and grief was thinking "someone came in and killed everyone." Not being in a sound state of mind at that moment she probably wasn't able to discern the nanny's wounds were self-inflicted...probably wasn't able to discern much of anything.

I don't think this is a case of the nanny just going ape shit on annoying little brats either, it seems like she basically had a psychotic break which unfortunately just happens sometimes. That's part of the world we live in with 7 billion people any number of which have brains that just aren't "right."

[OttoVonBismarck]

There was a story awhile ago, I think somewhere in the northeast, where a father went out to score some crack (instantly you should know this isn't a stellar family), and when he came back home his mentally ill wife had murdered their child. The father basically goes insane and beats the wife to death with a lead pipe or something.

[CountDeMoney]

Apparently the father of the house is the VP for CNBC Digital.

Link to some pics of the scene, housekeeper being rushed to the ambulance, mother in the back as well.

https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/mass-stabbing-west-side-article-1.1192419

[OttoVonBismarck]

Here we go:

BRENTWOOD, N.H. (AP) — A New Hampshire man was sentenced to 15 to 30 years in prison Friday for beating his wife to death with a flashlight after he came home to find she had strangled their 4-year-old son with a ribbon and tried to kill their 7-year-old daughter.
Christopher Smeltzer, 39, pleaded guilty to killing Mara Pappalardo, who was hospitalized several times for mental illness. Prosecutors say she was paranoid, obsessed with death and convinced her husband and mother-in-law were plotting to take her children away.

"When I walked into the room, as soon as I saw my son, I knew something was very wrong," Smeltzer told the court before he was sentenced, his voice breaking at times. "I knew he was dead. And I lost all control. Enraged, I struck my wife. I did something that was not going to bring my son back."
Smeltzer was charged with second-degree murder in the November 2010 killing at their Auburn home. Prosecutors later downgraded that to manslaughter, saying he was provoked by the sight of the still bodies of their son, Mason, and daughter, Mercey.

He arrived home Nov. 7 to find Mason with a ribbon around his neck and Mercey with a scarf around hers. He thought both were dead. Pappalardo tied a blue rope around her own neck in an attempt to kill herself, although prosecutors said she died from both strangulation and Smeltzer hitting her in the head with the flashlight.
Smeltzer did not call 911. Instead, he snipped the ribbon off Mason's neck and removed the scarf from Mercey's. Then he took all the pills he could find — painkillers, sleeping aids and methadone — and lay down on the couch to die.

He was awakened the next morning by Mercey, who asked if her mother and brother were breathing and requested a cup of tea. He made her one, then called his father and 911.
Smeltzer, who was wearing handcuffs Friday, wept while talking about how much he misses his son. "I miss my wife as well," he said. "I miss Mara's smile and heart and the way she played with our children."

He apologized to her family. "I brought more pain and sorrow," he said, adding he wishes every day he had a rewind button.
Judge Tina Nadeau said if Smeltzer earns a college degree and completes anger management behind bars, his minimum sentence would be reduced to 10 years.
Before Smeltzer spoke, a court-appointed guardian representing Mercey played a recording of the child reading a letter to the judge in which she said her father killed her mother and Mason. "If he loves me, why would he try to kill me?" she said. "If my daddy gets out, how will I keep safe? Please keep him in jail for the rest of his life."

After that, prosecutor Jane Young got up and said the recording is contrary to statements Mercey has made in the past, in counseling and interviews. She repeatedly had said her father had taken the scarf off of her neck. She has said she remembers her mother carrying her into the bedroom, but doesn't remember what happened next, Young said.
Prosecutors said there is no evidence that Smeltzer killed Mason.

And that's why I hate the poor, white trash and trash of other colors in this country. You read a story like that and you don't even need to know anything else, you know these people are from the underclass. The upper middle class and the upper class are just better people, and that's part of the reason we have more money.

[Razgovory]

Yeah, money really made those Menendez brothers good apples.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Yeah, money really made those Menendez brothers good apples.

It's a good example of what I'm talking about.

It's pretty well known at this time that money doesn't help people make better decisions than they would otherwise make. This is why a lot of cash payout systems designed to help the poor haven't actually helped as much as people would think. Things like TANF are good because it keeps families from having to eat out of garbage cans, and is a worthy use of our tax dollars. But up until the late 80s liberals argued that welfare helped raise people out of poverty. But unfortunately it does not appear to actually work that way. Welfare alleviates some of the worst aspects of poverty, but can't seem to really help a large number of people to permanently enter the middle class. What does? Who knows. Welfare-to-work despite being a lot more popular (and was based on both conservatives and liberals agreeing that previous welfare efforts didn't have great long term results), doesn't seem to work at that goal either.

Some people are simply so disadvantaged from poor upbringing, it is highly unlikely they can ever lift themselves out of poverty. A few really hard working people in those scenarios will. The rest will not. Some people are simply too intellectually or personality challenged to ever be successful, regardless of upbringing.

A severe autistic person will not earn much of a living for themselves. Born into a billionaire family they may never want, but they are also highly unlikely to earn much money in their lifetime. In fact their money will have to be managed for them, and if it wasn't it would evaporate as they are basically incompetent.

The Menendez brothers had rich parents, but that doesn't mean they themselves would have been rich if they hadn't been sent to jail. They spent $1m in the first six months after their parents died, they're a perfect example of bad eggs who make bad decisions and get impoverished. See: Vince Young, Britney Spears, Nicholas Cage, Mike Tyson. For various reasons none of these people are actually able to manage money or really their own lives. Some of them are lucky, and have talents that allow them to go back to the well to earn more money even after doing really stupid things (Spears and Cage), but some like Vince Young and Tyson whose gifts are primarily physical have no ability to go back to that well after a certain point. It shows that certain people just aren't fit to be part of the upper class. The only way people like that can remain permanently part of the upper class is if they hand over their financial life to a genuine member of that upper class to manage their money for them. These will be wealthy financial managers who went to Ivy League schools and came from good families, people you know aren't out snorting coke while their mentally ill wife strangles their kids.

[DGuller]

It's pretty well known at this time that money doesn't help people make better decisions than they would otherwise make. This is why a lot of cash payout systems designed to help the poor haven't actually helped as much as people would think. Things like TANF are good because it keeps families from having to eat out of garbage cans, and is a worthy use of our tax dollars. But up until the late 80s liberals argued that welfare helped raise people out of poverty. But unfortunately it does not appear to actually work that way. Welfare alleviates some of the worst aspects of poverty, but can't seem to really help a large number of people to permanently enter the middle class.

I think Reagan would disagree with you.  Back in the day he was trumpeting an example of a black woman who managed to break out of poverty, and become quite well-off, with the help of welfare.

[Razgovory]

Clearly the solution is to take everyone's money away.

[OttoVonBismarck]

It's pretty well known at this time that money doesn't help people make better decisions than they would otherwise make. This is why a lot of cash payout systems designed to help the poor haven't actually helped as much as people would think. Things like TANF are good because it keeps families from having to eat out of garbage cans, and is a worthy use of our tax dollars. But up until the late 80s liberals argued that welfare helped raise people out of poverty. But unfortunately it does not appear to actually work that way. Welfare alleviates some of the worst aspects of poverty, but can't seem to really help a large number of people to permanently enter the middle class.

I think Reagan would disagree with you.  Back in the day he was trumpeting an example of a black woman who managed to break out of poverty, and become quite well-off, with the help of welfare.

Obviously. I said that neither regular old style welfare or welfare-to-work actually seem to do a very good job to permanently improve very many people's economic prospects. That basically puts me at odds with every President since FDR, since all have supported some level of welfare as a means to "raise people out of poverty." Reagan supported welfare-to-work type schemes for most of his political life, and I'm sure that's what he was touting as his goals for welfare in reference to black people.

But the reality is welfare-to-work doesn't really work. I'm not entirely sure anything can, and suspect maybe Friedman was right in just suggesting we have a bigger negative tax (basically increased EITC) to alleviate the conditions of the poor and abandon the fallacy that we can throw money at them and make them more successful people.

If your goal is to alleviate misery, welfare does that. If you goal is to take poor people and give them the ability to work their way into middle or upple middle class type jobs and income, welfare appears to fail misery. Pre-reform, post-reform, any way you cut it.

[Phillip V]

The nanny charged with killing two children told the police their parents "were always telling her what to do."

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/06/nyregion/upper-west-side-nanny-resented-her-employers-police-say.html

[Caliga]

Does this mean I can kill my CEO?

[Ed Anger]

The poors are revolting.

[CountDeMoney]

And The Rock Cried Out.

[dps]

Does this mean I can kill my CEO?

Yeah, but CEOs get to kill people who work for government regulatory agencies.

[Grey Fox]

Does this mean I can kill my CEO?

Only when he's in the US.