Rod Kackley - Mommy Deadliest: A Shocking True Crime Story of a Murdering Mother

I was just in a rage. I was mad. It hurt. I just hated Earl Bowen for what he put me through.

-Martha Ann Johnson

Preface

I n Medea, an ancient Greek tragedy that tells the story of the myth of Jason and Medea, Jason abandons Medea, a former princess of the kingdom of Colchis, for a Greek princess of Corinth.

Medea gets her revenge by killing Jasons new wife and the children she had with him.

So, mothers killing their children to seek vengeance for a wrong committed against them by their husbands is not a new concept.

Phillip J. Resnick, a professor of psychiatry at Case Western Reserve Universitys Medical School, told the Washington Post there are five reasons mothers kill their children.

The first is altruistic filicide, when a mother kills because she believes she is saving her child a fate worse than death. The second is fatal maltreatment filicide when a child dies from abuse or neglect. The third reason,unwanted child filicide, pretty much speaks for itself. The fourth is acutely psychotic filicide, in which the mother hears voices directing her to kill her children.

Finally, there is spouse revenge filicide in which the mother is seeking revenge against the children's father after being abandoned for another woman; which is the story of Medeas double murder.

While psychiatrists can academically list reasons that mothers have been known to kill their children, it is still a crime that Society views with revulsion.

Momma is the loving person, the giving person, the sacrifice person for them to do something like that is like denying God or something, said Bobby Hicks, a former deputy sheriff, who was the first to interview Susan V. Smith.

Shes the South Carolina woman who killed her two children in 1994 by letting her car rolling a lake with the toddlers inside. She left the world and Bobby Hicks to wonder,

How could a mother do that to her children?

1

S gt. Kenneth Stewart helped Martha Ann Johnson dry her tears. They were sitting side-by-side in a small, windowless room, at a hard, wooden table. The room was devoid of any decoration except for a large clock that hummed above the only entrance, and there was a shelf of boxes on the wall opposite Stewart and Martha Ann.

Her distress was understandable. After all, the thirty-four-year-old woman was facing at least one murder charge and possibly more. It was Stewart's task to get her to confess. He would do whatever it took to make that happen, even it meant pretended to be an understanding confidant.

He didnt sympathize with the woman. How could he? She was accused of the worst crime that a mother could commit. Martha Ann was charged with killing one of her children.

Of course, she denied it, Stewart thought. It seemed like she had lied to herself about the deaths so long that Martha Ann believed her innocence to be the truth. He had to get her to keep her talking. This case had become something of an obsession with him.

All four of Martha Anns children had died within a five-year period. The cause of death in each case was found to be SIDS, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. However, authorities who investigated the last death, that of her eleven-year-old daughter, Jennyann, did describe the death as suspicious.

One of the police officers who had investigated the childs death had been astounded to realize Martha Ann seemed to care more about getting her estranged husband to return home than she was with the death of her daughter.

A neighbor who found Jennyann face down on a bed, wearing only a t-shirt and dry briefs, apparently dead, said she couldnt believe how calm Martha Ann appeared to be.

The paramedics who responded to Martha Anns home were surprised at the lack of emotion expressed by Martha Ann, and they had trouble believing her story that Jennyann had fallen a few days before and had been fitted with a brace at a local hospital that made it difficult to breathe.

A reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution found the report of Jennyann's death. After unearthing more about Martha Ann and the deaths of her four children, the case was reopened.

Sgt. Stewart had done more than console Martha Ann in the interrogation room. He had bugged her childrens graves, hoping that she might confess through an apology to her dead offspring. But Martha Ann never visited the cemetery without other relatives. Sgt. Stewart knew she would never admit to murdering her children with others around.

He had even gone through the garbage cans outside Martha Anns home.

Now he was sitting beside this woman who was accused of killing her children, one arm around her with a hand gripping her broad shoulders. The other hand, Steward used to wipe the tears from her eyes and cheeks. He spoke quietly, trying to get her to talk about the crimes.

What Martha Ann didnt know was that Sgt. Stewart had hidden a video camera in a box on a shelf facing her. If Stewart could get Martha Ann to confess, the camera would record everything.

2

M artha Ann Johnson didnt feel good about herself. Whenever the woman who was born in 1955 looked in the mirror or even saw her shadow on the ground, a short, fat, girl was looking back at her.

Martha Ann didnt have much going for her, but Martha Ann didnt want much. She had no lofty goals or ambitions.She didn't dream about much except fairy tales of love. Thats all she needed. Martha Ann just wanted someone to love and to love her back.

Was that really so much to ask?

Maybe this time, it would be better.

Martha Ann was only twenty-two, but she was already on her third husband. Earl Bowen was a good man. He was smarter than her. But, who wasn't? Still, Earl never made her feel fat or ugly or stupid. He was good to Martha Ann and to her kids.