HUDSON OAKS, Texas, May 29, 2007
Mother Hangs Self And 4 Daughters
8-Month-Old Is Lone Survivor Of Apparent Murder-Suicide In Texas
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Play CBS Video Video Mom, Kids Found Hanging Only On The Web: A woman and her four daughters were found hanging in a closet in their mobile home near Fort Worth, Texas. Amazingly, one of the children survived. Elisabeth Smick reports.
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Filly Echeverria holds an undated family photo showing Gilberta Estrada and her daughters Maria Teresa Estrada, left, and Janet Frayre, in Hudson Oaks, Texas, Tuesday, May 29, 2007. (AP)
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A body is wheeled out of a mobile home where a woman and her three daughters died, May 29, 2007. A fourth daughter, age 8 months, survived. (AP)
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The mobile home where the bodies were found, May 29, 2007. (KTVT)
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Interactive Crime Beat Statistics and specifics on crime in America.
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Photo Essay Horror In Houston Andrea Yates not guilty by reason of insanity in shocking drowning deaths of her five children.
A fourth child, an 8-month-old daughter, was also found dangling in the closet but was rescued by her aunt from the family's mobile home.
"It's horrendous. That's all I can say," Parker County Sheriff Larry Fowler said.
The woman was identified as Gilberta Estrada, 25. The infant, Evelyn Frayre, was in good condition at a hospital, Fowler said. Authorities did not immediately identify the other children, but Fowler said they were apparently ages 5, 3 and 2.
Filly Echeverria, who said she was the children's godmother, identified the dead as Maria Teresa Estrada, Janet Frayre and Magaly Frayre.
Estrada and her girls were last seen alive Monday evening, Fowler said. The woman's sister had gone to check on her because she hadn't gone to work, Fowler said. The woman works at a local Wendy's restaurant, CBS station KTVT reports.
Estrada's sister discovered the baby was still alive when she made a noise, authorities said. She called 911 and said through sobs that the infant was dying. She and her daughter called back two more times to ask the ambulance to hurry, according to a tape of the calls.
The sheriff said the hangings appeared to be murder-suicide because the trailer's doors were locked from the inside and a relative said the woman had been depressed.
The young mother and her girls were last seen alive Monday evening, he said.
The sheriff said Estrada had won a temporary restraining order in August against Gregorio Frayre Rodriguez, who was believed to be the father of the infant and some of the other children, after an attack on Estrada.
The sheriff said the couple had stopped living together in February. Tuesday was the first emergency police call to Estrada's trailer, and authorities said there was no evidence that Frayre abused the girls.
A telephone listing for Frayre, 38, could not immediately be located.
"I just got a big kick out of watching the kids play over there on her porch, and today it's sad, very sad," neighbor Joyce Harris said as other trailer park residents milled about on their porches, some crying and talking softly about the deaths.
Estrada's trailer was dilapidated, with paint peeling off the brown and white mobile home. Cactus plants and a rose bush decorated the front. Toys and a bicycle littered the back yard.
Texas has seen a number of child killings by mothers in recent years.
Less than five years earlier, another Hudson Oaks family was torn apart when Dee Etta Perez, 39, shot her three children, ages 4, 9 and 10, before killing herself.
Andrea Yates drowned her five children in the family's Houston bathtub in 2001. In 2003, Deanna Laney beat her two young sons to death with stones in East Texas, and Lisa Ann Diaz drowned her daughters in a Plano bathtub. Dena Schlosser fatally severed her 10-month-old daughter's arms with a kitchen knife in 2004.
All four of those women were found innocent by reason of insanity. Yates initially was convicted of capital murder, but that verdict was overturned on appeal.
© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Best-selling author Mitch Albom on his first nonfiction work since "Tuesdays with Morrie."
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See all 157 CommentsA change in just one person can affect change in the destiny of a community, nation, and all humankind!
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When a pregnant Gilberta Estrada-Vega arrived with her children at the SafeHaven women's shelter last summer, the staff at the Fort Worth shelter figured the 25-year-old would be one of their success stories. But it didn't turn out that way.
http://www.kvue.com/news/top/stories/053107kvuedeadfolo-eh.89add.html
Posted by bequialife at 04:09 PM : May 30, 2007
We DON'T know what she was thinking, or whether she even thought she had the option of saying no. Maybe "no" would have lost her her man; maybe "no" was not medically available (insurance). Maybe "no" was not an option for a "good wife" whose job it is to procreate.
We don't know what she was thinking. We don't know if she felt she had options. We don't know.
Uh, no, society is not responsible for people, people are responsible for people. This county offers endless opportunities for people to do something, or enhance their lives, starting with free education until 17(or 18) years of age. Programs, and training opportunites available for inexpensive, sometimes free. Mistakes are preventable, especially this woman. What is she thinking have 4 kids by the time she is 23 and can barely care for herself?
Posted by itwasntme000 at 03:33 PM : May 30, 2007
No, I'm saying that just handing them over to someone else is too simplistic; there are other factors involved. It's easy to say "hand them over," but it's useless. Come up with something more substantial than the pat response.
There is no legal separation in Texas, so he may or may not have been paying any child support. Again, a pat answer and simplistic supposition, but functionally useless.
To give them up would have required the father's consent; she can't just hand them over. And they likely would have then gone to the abusive spouse.
Try again.
Posted by WiccanTexan at 03:04 PM : May 30, 2007
So texan you are saying the kids were better off with the mother??? you are saying the kids are better off dead then with their father who was abusive to this woman??? (possibly abusive on one occasion or maybe many... dosen't matter). It also dosen't mean he would be abusive to the kids. ANyway tho that is not my point. The father most likely didn't want the kids and I bet he would be more then happy to rid himself of the child support he was paying to this woman.
AS YOU SO ELOQUENTLY PUT IT T-R-Y A-G-A-I-N
To give them up would have required the father's consent; she can't just hand them over. And they likely would have then gone to the abusive spouse.
Try again.
I couldn't agree more.Not only are criminals but they are the only responsible for these incidents and the irony is that suicide and extended suicide
can happen to any human being including them.Nobody thinks that some time in his/her life will die by suicide but unfortunately suicide is a disease and can happen to perfect stable,patient and self-composed people when serotonin circuit in the brain doesn't work properly.It's infinite difficult to admit it.Also the disease of depression is infinite painful.All these things make people to deny and dehumanize these diseases,but these attitudes are the main reason that tragedies like this happen.And those who critisize are more likely to develop such diseases because they have stress,fear,fear of mental illness(psychophobia) and consequently low tolerance of these incidents,and thats a big IRONY!.The problem,as a result,is not going to be solved and i will see you in the next similar incident!
Why cant all the Critics stand up and go do something about people having difficulty with life. Go help instead of criticizing people with problems.
Why dont you??..because you dont care. You only speak up after the fact and with angry hate filled comments about how stupid or rotten she was and its all her fault she lost her mind, how you wouldnt have done that and you know how it is to be depressed and you know what life was like in her shoes...blah blah blah.
People who criticize victims are just criminals justifying their own actions.
Posted by starshimmers
I disagree. Here in San Antonio, there are plenty of women in her circumstances. My own Mexican mother-in-law had 5 children, poor, usually alone because my FIL was a merchant seaman and gone a lot. But each of her children remember the love and strength she had, even in the hard times.
Each woman has her own coping skills, her own breaking point. In a smaller town, the resources of a larger city might not have been available. We simply don't know.
Posted by Phoenix1218 at 09:25 AM : May 30, 2007
OMG, it's all so simple. Just walk away. Read up on your statistics. Most of the abused women who end up dead are killed AFTER they leave. Talk to a women's shelter. And who would have covered her medical expenses for post-partum treatment? You? And how do you know she even had a priest to go to? Not that an unmarried, celibate person would have a clue as to what she might have been going through. He'd have told her to reconcile and be an obedient wife in God's eyes. Which would also have likely included "keep being fruitful."
Posted by Phoenix1218 at 09:25 AM : May 30, 2007
And you'll be paying for that quality day care for those 4 children while she goes to school and works full time, right? Or will you leave it to the state (which has a long waiting list for such assistance)? Oh, and you'll be paying for school as well, right?
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