A woman has been convicted of murdering her three young sons, reportedly so her husband would pay more attention to their daughter.
The 23-year-old mother-of-four allegedly from Bellefontaine, Ohio, killed her three sons by smothering them, The Columbus Dispatch reports.
Pilkington’s first son, three-month-old Niall, was found dead in her home in July last year, apparently from being suffocated.
No inquest into his death was called for, however.
A few months later in April this year, Pilkington’s eldest son, Gavin, four, was found dead in a similar fashion.
And then, most recently, her third – and last – son, Noah, three months, was discovered dead on Tuesday.
After his death, Pilkington was taken into custody and was charged with three counts of murder after confessing to their deaths.
“She has confessed to placing a blanket over the faces of three of her children and holding them either face down or face up until they expired,” prosecutor William Goslee revealed yesterday.
“No one could predict the behaviour of this mother, a 23-year-old mother who is apparently killing her children in order to preserve the smaller family with her and her daughter and the father of the children,” said Goslee.
As to the question of why the courts did not intervene after one, then two of her children had mysteriously died under the same circumstances, the prosecutor revealed that her youngest son, Noah, and the daughter, were removed from her custody, but were later given back.
“The court found there was insufficient evidence to justify keeping the children out of the home because there was no evidence of foul play at the time,” Goslee said.
“You cannot predict behaviour that is so erratic,” he said. “Did the system fail? The system failed to see the unforeseeable. … It’s a damn shame.”
“She did say … she was jealous of the favouritism the father showed the little boys,” Goslee said.
The couple’s three-year-old daughter has been taken into custody for protection.
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