Prince George’s County authorities charged Sonya Spoon, 24, with killing her two toddlers — Ayden Spoon, 1, and Kayla Thompson, 3 — in their Cheverly home on Sept. 7.
On Sept. 16, District police filed murder charges against Frances Lyles, 25, in the fatal beating of her son Xavier, 3, in June.
Earlier this year, Montgomery County police brought murder charges against a Germantown woman who allegedly killed her two toddlers because she believed they were possessed by demonic spirits.
Phillip J. Resnick, a professor of psychiatry at Case Western Reserve University’s Medical School who is considered to be an expert in the study of filicide, distinguishes between neonaticide, a term he coined to describe the killing of an infant by its parents within the first 24 hours of birth; infanticide, which involves a parent’s killing of a child less than 1 year old; and filicide, which is the killing of a child up to 18 years old by a parent, stepparent or guardian.
Fredrick Kunkle
A statistical analysis by Brown University researchers of more than 15,000 homicide arrests over 32 years found that about 500 parental filicides occur annually, or about 2.5 percent of homicide arrests.
Fredrick Kunkle
Reporter,Washington Post
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