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If you need proof that this country's economic woes are having a severe toll on families all across this country, look no further than South Carolina, where a Mother suffocated her two children and then lied to police and said they drowned when her car skidded in to a river.
Police say 29-year-old Shaquan Duley confessed to suffocating her two children after she had an argument with her mother. Duley allegedly placed her hand over their mouths. She then strapped the children into a car and drove it in to the river to fake the cause of their deaths.
And what would cause a young Mother to commit such a horrible act? Police say Duley was distraught over money troubles and unemployment.
"This was a young lady that was in trouble, in trouble in more ways than she realized," Sheriff Larry Williams told the AP. "She was in trouble and she didn't know where to turn."
Duley is expected to appear in court Wednesday afternoon to enter a plea of not guilty to the charges.
"We want everybody to keep an open mind and to understand that they don't know the whole story," said Duley's attorney Carl B. Grant.
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Dead are 2-year-old Devean C. Duley and 18-month-old Ja'van T. Duley.
Duley also had a five-year-old that will have to be raised by her mother, who is also currently unemployed, according to news reports.
It's incredibly sad that this woman could not find someone to turn to for support and instead resorted to taking the life of her children. There were surely psychological factors involved in Duley's morbid decision. Williams says that Duley claims her mother berated her about her failure as a parent and they argued frequently about her inability to provide financially for her children.
"She was a Mother that was unemployed. She had no way of taking care of her children," Williams told the New York Times.
It's clear that Duley is responsible for the decision to murder her children. And I, as some BV readers already have, question if the father of these children was fulfilling his financial responsibilities to his children. It is literally the least of his responsibilities. I'm sure another contributing parent would have removed some of the pressure Duley felt.
However, it's clear that help with money and jobs should be readily available to every citizen in this country. That's why its so discouraging to hear people like former Republican House Majority Leader Tom DeLay say that unemployment benefits should not be extended because it makes people not want to work.
"You know," Delay said on CNN, "there is an argument to be made that these extensions, the unemployment benefits, keeps people from going and finding jobs. In fact, there are some studies that have been done that show people stay on unemployment compensation and they don't look for a job until two or three weeks before they know the benefits are going to run out."
Republican Senator Jon Kyl is also on the same unemployment benefits equal laziness argument.
[Unemployment] doesn't create new jobs. In fact, if anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work," Kyl said
Others such as Ben Stein and Glenn Beck (surprise, surprise) have chimed in with similar sentiments.
Far from making people lazy, unemployment benefits keep families afloat until they can find work. No one is going to be partying it up with the small amount of money the benefits provide. Plus, it's called unemployment insurance because Americans pay in to the system while they are working just in case they need it at a later date.
In addition, the jobs just are not there. Even adults are lining up for low-wage fast food jobs that used to be filled by teenagers, and for African Americans like Duley, the national unemployment rate is higher than the general unemployment rate.
People need to be trained in jobs that are available. I worry for young people coming out of college with liberal arts degrees and tens of thousands of dollars of student loan debt.
No one should feel guilty about accessing the help that is available to them. Maybe if this Mother had more assistance, she would have made a different choice. It's too easy to just say Duley is a terrible person without examining the factors that preceded the unthinkable decision she made to murder her future.
I guess closing the deficit is more important than saving lives.
Comments: (160)
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By: ALI on 8/19/2010 5:38AM
THIS IS SO SAD. GOD BE WITH THIS MOTHER & HER FAMILY. IF SHE WAS THINKING IT WAS NO WHERE TO TURN, WE ALL SHOULD FEEL SORRY FOR THIS OUTCOME. I HOPE SHE GETS HELP, BECAUSE HER MIND & HEART WAS NOT ON JESUS. PEACE
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By: Eric on 8/17/2010 9:03PM
Why is anyone surprised? Here's another black woman acting out just like a white woman did before with almost the exact same pattern, and with the same result...killing her kids, then driving into water to try to cover it up! Black women just can seem to always want to follow in the same paths as do white women, and try to look like them but sadly can't! Another fact is that this isn't as uncommon as one might think with black women, and also why 57% of women of "all" races in prison in the US today are black! Strange that black women never mention that fact! Then it's easy to see why so many of their sons also go to jail as well!
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By: lvalentine on 8/18/2010 8:16PM
The only difference Eric is the white chick that tried to cover up killing her kids was the first to do this particular kind of murder. This current chick must not watch the news at all to think should could get away with such a thing. She must not watch shows like CSI and the like, because she thought she could sufficate her children then put the car in the lake like investigators wouldn't know that those children didn't die from drowning. It just tradgic all the way around.
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By: Joyce on 8/19/2010 2:01AM
Eric, you sound insane. White women are the ones getting poison put into their lips to make them look like Black women's lips, also they inject their butts so they can have one, you White weirdos pretend you don't like butt, but you freaky freaks do, and let's not mention how long you lay in the sun only to look like monsters when you get 40 (looking like 100 years old), all just to look like Black People in general. When a Black man wants to do the business freely, he gets a White woman because she's loose!!!! Now, watch your mouth stupid!!!!
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By: Connie on 8/17/2010 11:41PM
This is what happens a lot these day and it will always blows my mind as to how someone can do this to their own flesh and blood!!! I would jump in front of my child and take a bullet if someone was going to shoot them and yet their is Mothers that will kill their own child and never blink a eye! GOD help the sick way the world is turning out to be!!! That is why they made the "National Safe Haven Law" Please think enough of your kids to drop them off to be relinquished to the proper authorities, no questions asked. http://www.nationalsafehavenalliance.org/kids.php
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By: lvalentine on 8/18/2010 8:16PM
You are so right Connie. The world gets sicker by the day. The way I see it, when we started taking prayer out of the schools and trying to take God out of everything that America was built on such as taking "in God we trust off the money and the 10 commandments out of the court houses etc... The phrase "... America...America God shined his light on thee" is going down fast. I pray for our land.
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By: sshiverman on 8/18/2010 12:42AM
Oh but of course...yet another story of a single black mother with no father to turn to smh Black dudes are worthless when it comes to raising kids and have nothing to offer but potent sperm. DISGUSTING!
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By: Sue on 8/18/2010 9:10AM
All I can say is "May God Bless Those Poor Babies." How does anyone kill another human being let alone there own babies. There are so many women, men who want children but they can not have them biologically. This woman had three children and she kills two of her babies. It's inexcuseable. There's no reasoning what so ever. Those babies were innocent and defensless.
I have aslight grievance with the author of this article. He/She seems to be downplaying what this woman did by empasizing how stressed out she was.
Being stressed out gives no one any reason to harm or kill another being. If this woman was so pressured I'm sure she could have taken her babies to a friends/relatives home. H-ll she could have dropped them off at any police station or Social Service office. She could have done anything else other then killing her babies.She smothered her babies by placing her hand over there mouths. I can only imagine that's a scary and very painful way for anyone to die let alone two babies.
YES I can imagine her being under economic and or personal stress BUT what did she think she'd accomplish by killing her babies and then dumping her babies in a car in a bottom of a lake. Then she lied about everything like she really believed she'd get away with her heinious crime. This is Susan Smith all over again.
My heart goes out to those two babies. BUT I take comfort in knowing they are now safe in God's hands. There worries are all over. They'll hurt no more. I also feel bad for this woman's family and friends and I pray for there emotional healing and well being.
As for the mother who murdered her babies. May God help her soul. She will suffer in many ways for the rest of her life for what she did. Her jailor will be her own CONSCIOUS. I don't think she'll ever be able to live this down. She should do many years in jail for all the good jail time will do. But I don't think they should ever allow her out of jail. She has another child how safe is that child?
I wonder with the economy being as bad as it is if there are any agencies out there that have thought of setting up some type of "FREE Stress Relief Center."
These days many people are under tremendous stress. People are losing there jobs, homes and in some cases families are being separated and torn apart.
I truly wonder what typ of FREE outreach services are available to adult men and women who are in need of positive feed back, encouragement and guidance. Just because a person is an adult does not mean they have all answers to life. We as adults at times may need guidance and support and encouragement to help us through a rough streak.
With todays economy and stresses of life in general I think there needs to be centers where adults can go vent, cry, and release whatever stresses they may have. If there are adult services like this available then the media needs to advertise them a lot more. Public comercials need to be made advertising the name, addresses and phone numbers of all local centers that provide outreach services to adults who are under extreme pressure.
It is my belief if more adult outreach centers become readilly available and known to the public tragedies like this would be minimized and lives of children and adults would be saved.
Adults Do Not have the key to all of lifes answers and problems. Some adults need support from sources outside of there family and friends.
In the wake of this horrible tragedy this is just an idea to ponder..
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By: Ernest Langston on 8/18/2010 1:38PM
So many right-on comments here. On a differnet slant: Perhaps, if the government would stop paying, in various forms, to support the children of poor, impovershed women, these women would stop after giving birth to the first child. Because of the financial burden she would bring to herself and her relatives who would have to care for the child, she wouldn't dare have another. As long as the government incentive is there, why care? And what about the family of this woman? What happened to the shame associated with being an unwed mother? The black culture and attitude of today has only set the race back about 50 years. The hero's of the fifties and sixties all fought and struggled in vain.
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By: Joyce on 8/19/2010 2:25AM
Hey Ernest,
Did it set the White Race back 50 years when Susan Smith first killed her children? What do you say?
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