Dad 'just snapped' before boy's death

[zazen]

Source: Raleigh News & Observer

DURHAM -- A devoted father who built a career helping the sick and the injured is accused of killing his 4-year-old son and trying to smother his other two children before attempting to take his own life.

Joseph A. Mitchell, 46, an out-of-work emergency medical technician, remained under guard at Duke Hospital late Wednesday, where investigators said he was being treated for self-inflicted stab wounds. On his release, police say, he will be charged with first-degree murder in the death of his youngest child, Blake Mitchell, and two counts of attempted murder. . . .

Mitchell and his wife had struggled to hold onto the $430,000 home they bought in 2001. Except for odd jobs, Joseph Mitchell had been out of work for more than a year. Neighbors said his wife sold Avon. . .

"If they had just reached out, we could have helped them," she said. "I guess he had so much pride he couldn't bow down and ask for help. That's the only thing I can see going wrong. ... We are just sick. We are devastated." A paper trail of court proceedings documents the couple's financial troubles.

Read more: http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/09/23/697865/dad-accused-in-death-of-son-just.html

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This is just so sad.

The hiatus in financially distraught men going berzerk on their families was too brief.

Or, perhaps it's been ongoing and it's become too commonplace for the national media to report on it.

Is there some self-destructive sociobiological impulse that leads certain men to destroy their progeny if they can't provide for them? It's a crime that just makes no sense to me.