posted 11-23-2004 08:04 AM         

VIDEO

Plano mother charged with murder

Schlosser battled postpartum depression after the baby's birth

07:46 AM CST on Tuesday, November 23, 2004

By JENNIFER EMILY and TERRI LANGFORD / The Dallas Morning News

PLANO – Covered in her daughter's blood, Dena Schlosser sat in the living room of her apartment listening to the hymn "He Touched Me."

Dena Audre Schlosser "Shackled by a heavy burden/'Neath a load of guilt and shame/Then the hand of Jesus touched me/And now I am no longer the same," the beginning of the hymn goes.

Ms. Schlosser is heard humming along on a 911 recording as she answers a telephone call from an emergency dispatcher about noon Monday.

"I cut her arms off," the 35-year-old said in a quiet voice about her 10-month-old daughter, who later died. She tells him the baby is unconscious and isn't breathing.

Paramedics found the baby in a crib in a bedroom. Her arms were severed. The child died at Medical Center of Plano.

Ms. Schlosser, who was diagnosed with postpartum depression during a Child Protective Services neglect investigation early this year, was charged with capital murder Monday afternoon.

When paramedics arrived, a man's voice can be heard on the 911 tape calmly saying: "Give me the knife now. Give me the knife."

She offered no explanation for her actions to the dispatcher, and police would not comment about why she may have killed the youngest of her three daughters. They also would not discuss whether investigators recovered a knife or other weapon.

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911 call:
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Video: Bert Lozano reports

About postpartum depression
The child's name has not been released, and the woman's husband could not be reached for comment.

"Both arms were completely severed," Plano police spokesman Officer Carl Duke said. "She was not talking when she left here. She was very quiet, subdued."

Plano police said the child's injuries were horrifying.

"I've never had to face anything like this before," Detective Bryan Wood said. "And, frankly, I'd never want to.

"My sympathies go out to the family and to the first responders on the scene."

Ms. Schlosser's husband and two other daughters, ages 6 and 9, lived in the downstairs apartment but were not home at the time. The older daughters, who have been placed in temporary foster homes, were in school.

Ms. Schlosser's husband had called an employee at a child-care facility and asked her to check on his wife as he drove home from work in Arlington, according to the 911 recording. A co-worker of that woman then called 911.

It was not the first time authorities were called to the apartment on Coit Road.

A CPS investigator was sent to Ms. Schlosser's home Jan. 15 after she was seen running down the street, followed by her then-5-year-old daughter, who was on a bicycle. When police and CPS arrived at the scene, the child told them her mother had left her 6-day-old sister alone in the family's apartment. None of the children was injured.

The mother, who was despondent, appeared to be suffering from postpartum depression, said Marissa Gonzales, CPS spokeswoman.

RICK GERSHON/Special Contributor
Plano police crime scene investigator Bill Lackey removed evidence from the apartment complex on Monday.
"Mom started walking and running from the apartment," Ms. Gonzales said. "Someone called law enforcement, and she was obviously having some sort of psychotic episode."

Ms. Schlosser was taken to a Collin County hospital, where she was treated for a few days, Ms. Gonzales said. The children were released to their father, who told authorities she had been acting strangely since the birth of the third child Jan. 9.

Once Ms. Schlosser was released from the hospital, she agreed to seek counseling and see a psychiatrist, Ms. Gonzales said.

She kept all of her appointments and at one time had received a prescription for a psychotropic drug. But sometime between January and August, she was taken off the medication, Ms. Gonzales said.

"We had received assurances that Mom was stable from the people who were dealing with her, the professionals," Geoffrey Wool, CPS spokesman in Austin, said of the decision by her doctors to take her off of the medication.

CPS caseworkers continued to visit the family through the spring and summer, the last time on July 29.

"She was doing well," Ms. Gonzales said.

The case was closed Aug. 9 and classified with a finding of "Reason To Believe-Neglectful Supervision."

"At the time we had closed the case, we had been assured she was stabilized and she posed no risk to herself or her children, to the extent that you can predict these things," Mr. Wool said.

The baby's death shocked residents of the apartment complex, which is home to numerous families.

Michael Lujan, 25, who lives in the same building, said he often saw Ms. Schlosser and her children having picnics under the trees near their building. He said she stayed home with the children while her husband worked. Her older daughter often rode her bike.

"I'm in shock," said Mr. Lujan, who has two children. "She seemed sweet to me ... just like any other mother. She was loving and tended to their needs."

Others struggled to understand how such a tragedy could happen.

"What would drive a person to do that?" said resident Jacob Hopland, 22. "I know kids are hard to handle, but you have to step up and be a good parent."

Officer Duke said Ms. Schlosser was not talking with officers at the police station about what happened. No previous criminal record could be found.

Mood problems are common up to two week after giving birth, said J. Douglas Crowder, clinical associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.

"That's the so-called baby blues," Dr. Crowder said. "When it goes longer than that, you need to be concerned."

Postpartum symptoms are the same as depression, Dr. Crowder said. Mood swings, loss of appetite, insomnia, fatigue and thoughts of suicide are typical. At the worst psychotic level, mothers may hallucinate or conclude that their children are hopelessly flawed and better off dead.

But he said violence toward children is uncommon in postpartum cases.

Dr. Crowder said a law that went into effect last year requires doctors to warn parents of the effects of postpartum depression.

The law was precipitated by the case of Andrea Yates of Houston, who was sentenced to life in prison in 2002 for drowning three of her five children, he said. It is meant to prompt families to seek medical help for women who display symptoms.