I think this was child molesting gone awry. I don’t think she stopped the car and took off their clothes. I think their clothes were already off.

Just gonna molest ‘em in the car on the way over, huh? That’s taking multitasking a little too far.

Nah, I ain’t buying it. If she’d got pulled over for anything she’d have been screwed. They said she was crazy, not stupid.

A “history of mental illness” doesn’t make this type of person kill her twin sister’s children. She murdered her twin sister’s children!

AND

The car is facing the wrong direction and a woman is struggling inside the car. Hundreds of people are driving by. No one stops to help? What’s up with this world?

Maybe she hit her head in the fender bender. Who knows what happened, but you can’t blame Mandi.

I don’t blame Mandi. I think unfortunatley she is truly a victim of poor circumstance!

If I lost my children that would send me over the deep end!

I don’t agree that every person who may have a so called mental condition or who has had a breakdown in life is a bad canidate for a sitter. It depends on the severity of the condition and how well you really know the person. I believe common sense also tells you if a person is hinting towards suicide or has extreme lows and mania, *alarm rings* this may not be obviously best person to leave child with.

Exactly. I don’t think Danielle (the children’s mom) had any idea that her sister was that ill. To me, a year after a major mental snap is pretty soon to be caring for small children alone, but that’s my nursing background talking. Many, many parents and caregivers struggle with depression, dissociative disorders, bipolar disorders and other illnesses without hurting or killing people around them – we all have our junk, but most of the time our junk doesn’t make us kill ourselves or our loved ones.

In Marci’s case, she must have had a very severe break a year ago and maybe covered her symptoms pretty well, because nobody seemed aware that she was slipping badly when the kids went to visit her. It’s nobody’s fault, really, but I honestly think she had to have been having some suicidal and/or homicidal ideation before this horrific event. I do wish she’d told someone.

My mother has had “depression” my whole life. I will not disclose to much about her as I know it would be something she wouldn’t take kindly. My point is my mother is a wonderful mother, grandmother and I would leave my boys with her 100% and never worry that she was not fully committed to their welfare. She lives in, in-law quarters at my home so I am very aware of her state of well being. I

As for the situation at hand I have been around mental illness enough to say when a person is having a “breakdown” there are signs. I don’t know if the sisters were in constant contact. This sounds like this woman just flipped the switch!

It would be pretty rare for even a disorganized schizophrenic or a dissociative person to snap so suddenly and without warning, but if in fact that’s what happened here it’s even more horrible.

Morbid was pretty clear that in no way was this the mother’s fault, and that she had no clear reason not to trust her sister – but i will say that if my sister had a mental breakdown she wouldn’t be keeping my kids without me being there, even a year later.

Exactly.
Once again, Impqueen states things much more eloquently than I.

And while talking trash about someone without knowing the “whole back story” might be boorish and ignorant, I don’t think there’s any amount of back story here that will ever make me think it was okay that this woman did what she did.

Her twin sister trusted her completely, and this a strange and tragic event that occured on the highway. It is awful that the children were victims in this suicide. No one of reasonable intelligence and sound mind would strip themselves of clothing and rush into oncoming traffic; there was definitely something wrong in her brain.

When you kill yourself and take children with you, it’s murder, not just suicide.

I don’t think anyone is suggesting that Marci was thinking normally when she killed herself, her niece and nephew. It is probably natural for people to wonder if someone should have seen that she wasn’t behaving normally in the hours or days before this tragedy happened. It would be pretty rare for even a disorganized schizophrenic or a dissociative person to snap so suddenly and without warning, but if in fact that’s what happened here it’s even more horrible.

Morbid was pretty clear that in no way was this the mother’s fault, and that she had no clear reason not to trust her sister – but i will say that if my sister had a mental breakdown she wouldn’t be keeping my kids without me being there, even a year later. That aside, my sympathies lie with the whole family in this, and I’m so sorry your friends lost their mother and cousins in such a tragic way. I hope they’ll be able to find some peace in the months and years ahead of them.

I would not be so quick to comment about people when you don’t have the whole back story.

Don’t care much for blogs or forums, eh?
People aren’t going to wait for the inquest and all the interviews and evidence before offering their opinion on some fucked up shit, sorry.

Marci was a very respected member of our community.

Not any more.

She has a mental breakdown a year ago, for which she received help and there was no evidence of any relapse.

I’d say this was y’all’s wake up call.

I would not be so quick to comment about people when you don’t have the whole back story.

I don’t know if you were referring to me, another poster, or just in general, but you basically just echoed what I had already stated.

Thanks for clarifying, though.

I don’t know if you know the answer to this, but was she on any type of medication because of her original breakdown? Or off of any?