Rare cases of children killing their parents hit hard in area; 2 teens accused in Lenawee Co. deaths

Toledo Blade (Ohio)
Laren Weber Blade
October 5, 2008

Slowly, Mindy Berenyi has begun to forgive herself.

More than a decade has passed since the then-16-year-old girl fatally shot her father in their rural Paulding County home. She claimed she had been a victim of childhood abuse.

Berenyi said she always has known what she did was wrong.

But the desperation and fear she felt was inescapable.

“Even though every rational part of me was screaming at myself not to do it, I shot him,” said Berenyi, now 29, who is serving a life sentence at the Ohio Reformatory for Women in Marysville. “I became what I was afraid of that day – someone who is capable of taking another person’s life.”

There were 201 cases of parents believed to be killed by their children reported in the United States last year, according to the FBI. Such cases typically make up about 1 percent of the nation’s ho-micides.

Although experts say such crimes are extremely rare in the United States and around the world, there have been two cases in Michigan’s Lenawee County in two years – both involving teenagers.

The most recent such accusation was 11 days ago.

A 17-year-old boy is charged with fatally shooting his mother and father in their home in Adrian, about 38 miles northwest of Toledo.

Police said the suspect, Marshall Sosby, had an argument with his parents about using too many minutes on his cell phone. Authorities have not pointed to that as the motive.

In July, 2006, in rural Lenawee County, Kristina Adkins, then 13, allegedly mixed morphine with her custodial grandmother’s medication on three consecutive days. Her grandmother died a month later of an allergic reaction to the painkiller, according to the medical examiner. Authorities have declined to disclose a motive.

The Adkins youth, now 16, faces murder, poisoning, and other charges in the death of her grandmother, 53-year-old Virginia Bentley. She is to stand trial in November.

The abuse factor

Kathleen Heide, a criminology professor at the University of South Florida who has researched thousands of cases of parricide – children who kill their parents – said the majority involve adult children.

Only about 25 percent are committed by juveniles. It is even more rare, she said, for children to kill both of their parents.

Regardless, Ms. Heide said abuse is among the most common reason for such murders.

“Healthy kids don’t kill their parents,” she said.

Paul Mones, a Portland, Ore., lawyer who pioneered the battered-child syndrome defense in the early 1980s, said he has represented more than 300 juveniles charged with killing their parents. During his 25-year career, he can only recall two seemingly well-adjusted children who committed the killings.

Most involve children who have been abused or are suffering from an undiagnosed mental illness, Mr. Mones said, stressing that he has no knowledge of the teenage cases in Michigan.

Pulling the trigger

In Paulding County, Berenyi, who was convicted of aggravated murder in 2000, claimed battered-child syndrome as a defense for killing her father. She is eligible for parole in 2012.

Such a defense, which was not recognized in Ohio until 1998, allows victims of abuse to argue that they had a reason to kill. Berenyi said the sexual abuse began when she was 9 and escalated into more violent episodes of hitting and choking as she grew older.

But during her trial, prosecutors repeatedly asked Berenyi why she had never told anyone of the alleged abuse.

“I thought the things that happened in my house happened in every house,” she said during a recent interview. “I really didn’t understand.”

Berenyi said she took a loaded 12-gauge shotgun from her father’s bedroom Sept. 27, 1995, and stepped into the bathroom with thoughts of killing herself.

When she heard her father come home, she said she yelled to him to check the telephone answering machine.

Berenyi said she had planned to run past him to return the gun to his room, but when she walked out into the kitchen, she saw him begin to turn around and she pulled the trigger.

No signs of trouble

Adrian Deputy Police Chief James Schwartz said detectives are continuing to interview the Sosby youth’s friends, acquaintances, and teachers in hopes of uncovering details of what may have led him to allegedly kill his parents last month.

The deputy chief said there appeared to be no indications of abuse within the family.

The Adrian High School junior had no criminal record and friends said he wasn’t a violent person.

But Mr. Mones said those are fairly common traits among juvenile perpetrators.

Typically, children who kill their parents don’t have a history of being violent or acting out. They tend to be average students, but oftentimes don’t have a lot of friends, Mr. Mones said.

He also said it’s not uncommon for children to share with someone their plans of killing their parents.

Adrian police said the Sosby youth had told friends on more than one occasion that he wanted to murder his parents.

Yet, no one took him seriously. Authorities were not made aware of the statements until after the shootings.

“The kids typically talk about it and leave an evidence trail a mile long and wide,” Mr. Mones said.

A deadly evening

On the night of the killings, police said the youth apparently had become angry after his parents, Michael and Carmen Sosby, took away his cell phone.

Mr. and Mrs. Sosby then began searching the house for their son, unaware he was waiting near the bottom of the stairs with a loaded 9mm semiautomatic pistol, Deputy Chief Schwartz said.

The gun was registered to Mr. Sosby, who was shot in the head and shoulder as he turned a corner near the stairs. Mrs. Sosby tried to run away and was shot once in the head seconds later, Deputy Chief Schwartz said. Both were pronounced dead at the scene.

The teenager then pointed the weapon at his younger sister, Samantha Sosby, 14, who witnessed the incident, and threatened to kill her if she told police what he had done, authorities said.

The Sosby youth then called 911 and lied about what had occurred, claiming an abusive relationship was to blame for the murder-suicide.

“My dad was abusive. My dad hits my mom a lot,” the teen told a 911 operator. “We kind of had a feeling this would happen.”

The boy later confessed to the slayings, authorities said.

He was charged with two counts of open murder, one count of assault with a dangerous weapon, one count of interfering with a police investigation, and four counts of felony firearms. He faces life in prison.

Looking for reasons

Deputy Chief Schwartz said many people in the middle-class city are struggling to comprehend Mr. and Mrs. Sosby’s deaths.

More than 100 people gathered for a vigil outside the couple’s house at 716 Division St. on Sept. 27.

Balloons, family photos, and stuffed animals were placed by the fence as the crowd lit candles in their remembrance.

“As a society, we don’t expect our children to kill. When you have that vision of a murderer or killer, whatever that vision may be, usually you don’t think of children as fitting that profile,” Deputy Chief Schwartz said.

Although Berenyi, who killed her father, doesn’t know the Adrian teen or his circumstances, she said she believes that “no child just kills their parents for no reason.”

For her, it was about surviving, she said.

“I don’t know how to explain the desperation that I felt,” she said. “It has taken me 13 years to even start to heal.”

Staff writer Mark Reiter contributed to this report.