Sheryl Lynn Massip
- United Press International, October 4, 1988
A woman on trial for driving her station wagon over her infant son suffered from a rare mental illness that caused her to hear voices telling her to kill the baby, her lawyer said in opening statements Monday.
Orange County Deputy District Attorney Thomas Borris, however, told a jury of eight women and four men that Sheryl Lynn Massip, 24, killed her colicky 43-day-old son because she was fed up with his crying.
Defense lawyer Milton Grimes said Massip killed her only child on her 23rd birthday in April 1987 because she suffered from postpartum psychosis, a rare maternal mental illness that some experts say can drive a woman to violence. Massip has pleaded innocent by reason of insanity.
”This is real,” Grimes said, referring to the disorder. ”It can, in essence, make you crazy.”
Massip is charged with first-degree murder. If convicted, she would face a maximum sentence of 26 years to life in prison.
As the 84-pound Massip, dressed in a flower print dress and beige shoes, sobbed with her head bent, Grimes said a hormonal imbalance caused by childbirth combined with the sick baby’s constant crying to bring about Massip’s mental illness.
Massip earlier told a court-appointed psychiatrist that the baby cried 15 to 18 hours a day because he suffered from colic, acute abdominal pain caused by various abnormal conditions in the bowels.
Until giving birth, Grimes said, Massip ”never showed a propensity toward violence.”
On the morning of April 29, 1987, Massip ‘’snapped” and believed ”voices commanded her to rid the baby of its pain,” Grimes said. She killed her baby several hours later.
Borris argued that Massip killed the infant because she regretted having the child and because he would not stop crying.
Following opening statements, Henry Nisental, a business associate of the dead baby’s father, Alfredo Massip, and a prosecution witness, quoted Mrs. Massip as saying, ”After having a baby, a woman can regret it.”
Massip made the statement in reference to the baby’s constant crying during a conversation with Nisental the morning the infant was killed, Nisental testified.
Leslie Perry, a former receptionist for Massip’s pediatrician, testified she told Massip the morning of the killing that her insurance carrier had notified the doctor’s office it would no longer pay the baby’s health costs.
Perry said that she would, however, call the insurance carrier and see if she could persuade the company to change its stance. Massip replied, ”I hope someone can help me before something bad happens,” Perry said.
Borris said that hours after Massip spoke with Nisental and Perry, the mother wrapped her baby in a white blanket and threw him in front of a car whose driver had to swerve to miss the infant.
Massip then drove her son to a steep street in an isolated area of the nearby city of Fullerton, where she rolled her car over the infant’s head and dumped the body in a nearby trash can, Borris said. The body was found by authorities later in the day.
Massip’s husband, who divorced his wife shortly after her arrest, will testify for the prosecution, Borris said. Mr. Massip operates a janitorial service.
Postpartum psychosis has been used in insanity pleas in about 15 trials nationwide. Verdicts from those trials have been split, with about half for acquittal.
About one in 10 new mothers is afflicted by the disorder, which can show itself through abnormal behavior such as crying uncontrollably or undergoing massive panic attacks. In extreme cases, experts say, the depression can turn to psychosis and violence.
In a recent similar case, a New York jury Sept. 30 acquitted former pediatric nurse Ann Green of second-degree murder and attempted murder. Green claimed she was suffering from postpartum psychosis when she suffocated two of her newborn babies and tried to kill a third child.