Mom Posts on Facebook One Hour Before Drowning Kids

This is one sad story.
I have been following every element of the case I can since it happened earlier in the week.
The act is so aberrant and inconceivable to me, I run it through my head during my many miles on the road.
Of course, this case is all over talk radio and the news.
The world is aghast. And for good reason.
How do you conceive the inconceivable?

If you don't know who LaShanda Armstrong is, you will.... by the time you finish reading this blog post.
And the articles that I am linking you to, will take you deeper into the tragic case.

LaShonda is the baby mama who deliberately drove her van and four children into the freezing waters of the Hudson River on Tuesday.
10 year old La'Shaun  escaped out a window in the minivan and swam to the shore, while his mother held her other three children in a death grip.
Landen and Lance Pierre, ages 5 and 2, and sister, Laianna Pierre, 11 months, drowned.
As did their murderer... their mother.

The  courageous surviving boy, little La'Shaun,  is now staying with an aunt in New York.
La'Shaun bore witness to  his mom's final verbal words before he escaped the watery tomb.
He  shared his mothers last words with both the witness, a woman who found him... and the police detetctive:
"If I'm going to die," La'Shaun said his mother said, "we're all going to die together."
La'Shaun heard this, rolled down the automatic window and swam out of the van,  while his mother tried to pull him back in.
In the very end, La'Shawn herd his mother cry she'd made a mistake.
The image/imagining of this underwater scenario sends shivers up even this jaded spine.

This is a fascinating link to the mother's back story in the Los Angeles Times.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-mother-drowns-kids-20110414,0,221941.story

What I just found out today, was the mother updated her Facebook status an hour before she drowned those kids and herself. She used her Blackberry.
It was in essence, a suicide note... on Faceboook.
Her status said. “I’m so sorry everyone forgive me please for what I’m gonna do…. This Is It!!!!”
Here's a link to a story about the Facebook post.
http://www.allfacebook.com/n-y-mom-left-suicide-note-on-facebook-2011-04

This is a horrific story and I wonder if anything could have been done to prevent it.
It seems some people suffer so silently inside their own heads.
With others, you can see glimpses of strange or despondent behavior... sometimes, you see more .
Yet can anyone see something this heinous coming?

Suicide notes on Facebook say something pretty profound after the fact.
And I believe this woman had her mind made up  to kill her children when she posted that status update.
The fact that she posted it at all.... then drove that car in the water like Susan Smith did... is something I have still been unable to wrap my head around.
Susan was a chicken and saved only herself.
This mom was determined to do herself in, with no child left behind.

Perhaps we can learn something from the lone young  survivor.
Perhaps he was sent as a messenger to let us know all is not well here in America.
There's a world of hurt going on behind closed doors.
And the ultimate victims are the youngest... and most helpless.
The kids.
One more reason to be ever vigilant.