A Mother Who Kills

The world famous Edinburgh Fringe Festival has opened, the flats are full, the streets are covered in posters and Victorian-dressed actors run the Royal Mile shouting lines from the latest play they are performing daily in a damp basement while starry-eyed new comics wonder if they will get their big TV break at the comedy festival. It’s show time!

Across the city, a woman lies in a hospital bed after falling from the second floor of her rented flat in Edinburgh . There was a gas explosion at the flat. Theresa Riggi, an American divorcee who had settled in Scotland with her US oil worker husband Pasquale, had been going through a bitter custody battle, which is now over. She decided to stab to death her three children - twin boys aged eight and a daughter aged five - and then make an attempt on her own life.

It is shocking when parents decide to kill their own children rather than hand them over or share them with a partner and usually, when kids are murdered in a custody battle, it is statistically more likely to be the father who carries out the evil deed.

Theresa Riggi had been living in Edinburgh and a local restaurant owner Mr Quinn, who had befriended her and the children, said: "This is a terrible, terrible tragedy and I have been left completely gobsmacked by what has happened. Theresa absolutely doted on those kids. I would have put her at the foot of a list of anyone that this could have happened to.

"She and the children came in regularly, once or twice a week, for an early evening meal. She never spoke about her husband and she never came here with her husband.

"She always had the children with her. They were always spotless. They were as well-behaved and perfect kids as you could wish for. They never put a foot out of place. The little girl was always dressed in party mode in big frilly dresses. They were extremely polite and Theresa absolutely doted on them and that is why it is such a shock. I cannot praise them enough as a family."

In my opinion, it rocks the very essence of motherhood when a woman takes a knife to her children’s flesh, I can’t imagine what scenario would drive someone to murdering their own baby, just so their partner can’t get access to the child.

Right now the deaths of the Riggi children are under investigation, so there is only speculation at this point about the background of the case. Apparently her husband was a high-earning oil worker and there had been an acrimonious divorce which tore the family apart.

We do know that her husband contacted the authorities concerning the safety of his kids and a judge presiding over the US couple’s divorce had instructed court officials to search for Mrs Riggi. Scottish social services had been advised to get involved with the family but were waiting on further information regarding the background of the children and hadn’t made contact with Mrs Riggi.

Personally I don’t lay blame with social services; they can only do the best they can because, when a parent really wants to end their child’s life, it would take a very rigorous and invasive social services department to stop that from happening and we don’t have that kind of system here in the UK . Especially when dealing with a middle class, affluent family that had presented itself as well-educated and cultured. I believe it’s harder for the system to deal with underlying threats to children when they can’t pick holes at the basic care. If the kids are well cared for, clean, happy and the parent does not appear to be neglectful, then it’s hard to know what danger is being posed.

It has taken decades of study by criminologists and psychologists to try to understand what makes a care giver, nurturer and parent to end the life of their own children.

Some people have come to the conclusion that parents kill their kids as a final act of defiance against the partner they hate. There are some cases when a parent has killed their child when they felt an injustice by the legal system. All in all, adults use their kids as a final destructive weapon of anger and that is despicable.

Children are supposed to be safe and loved by a parent, not used strategically as a loaded gun, where their safety is at the mercy of a parent who is planning to kill them to vent their revenge and anger against the system or the world.

The Edinburgh Festival is a time for fun and excitement, the city is awash with kids from all around the world, but this horrible event is a reminder that kids need protection. Children need security and deserve laws to prevent them being held over to a parent who are an endangerment to their kids.

I hope the family of the Riggi children find peace in the future and dearly hope that Theresa Riggi will survive her suicide attempt and face a justice system that failed to save her kids.