 |
| Patricia Rosenstone |
The ensuing public outrage might have been justified but such cases routinely end in short sentences, or acquittals in Quebec. Here are a couple of examples.
 |
| Michele Bradette |
and Maya, aged between 11 months and five-years,* on January 3, 1978 and left them covered with a sheet in the hallway of 690 13 Ave. N. in Sherbrooke.
She had slit their throats with a butchers knife and then slit her wrists but died not die from the self-inflicted wound.
The killings took place three days after Rosenstone was released from a mental hospital and was green-lighted to be reunited with the kids.
Attempts to find out who authorized the return failed, as a court withheld the health facility's refusal to release what they said was a confidential health file.
After killing her children she was brought into the insane asylum, where she attempted suicide by leaping out of a window, only succeeding in breaking her arm. She was deemed not criminally responsible for killing her three kids due to temporary insanity on April 18. On December 15, 1978 she was freed and moved to Florida to be with her parents. A local woman fighting for children's rights named Jane Pankovitch nobly fought for an investigation into the entire dossier but that didn't shed light on the failings of the system.
In a separate case Michele Bradette, 20, killed her seven-month-old baby Martin Racicot on Nov. 7, 1978, by punching him in the head three times. She said she had spent three sleepless nights tending to the child at her home in St. Felix in Abitibi. The child had a terrible cold and she had to get up several times to tend to the little boy. One of the times she snapped and hit the child. She thought he had gone to sleep but he was dead. Her boyfriend Jacques Racicot was on hand at the sad time. She plead guilty to involuntary homicide and received one year in prison.
*another source lists the children's ages as 2, 5 and 10.