Murder suspect 'was trying his best'

Imagine an 18 year old father of two who got sick of his latest baby's crying, and threw him in the clothes dryer for a few minutes to shut him up. Having killed the baby, causing third degree burns over half its body and severe cerebral hemorrhaging, he then runs to a neighbor and claims that someone unknown person locked him out of his own house, threw the baby in the dryer, then disappeared.

Do you suppose that people would then say:

"Like a lot of other teen-age boys, he made a few mistakes in life and was trying his best to deal with them. He's basically a good kid. I guess that's why everyone is so shocked by what happened."

"He was such a nice, sweet boy that I can't believe he would do such an unspeakable thing."

"He didn't really have an explanation for why he did it. He just said he's been depressed."

"It seemed like he took really good care of those children, his little girl is so beautiful and precious."

"It's not because he had a bad personality or anything like that, I think it's just because he was so quiet and shy."

"You pretty much had to say something to him before he would say anything to you,"

"Everybody wants to know why he did this, but there are some things in life we can't understand. We're asking the kids to try to be considerate and pray for the child as well as the father. He obviously needs help."

No, I don't think anyone would be this charitable. Indeed, I'm quite sure that the idea that he was just depressed would have been laughed out of the room, being quiet and shy would be interpreted as a lurking pathology just waiting for malignant expression and as for "needing help" I think his school principal would probably be more inclined to suggest he be locked up and the key thrown away, he's a baby-killer after all. There'd also been plenty of inuendo about the kind of young man who fathers two children by the time he's 18 and horrified discussion of the state of young men and fatherhood today.

And yet exactly these things were said of an 18 year old high school girl in New Orleans, already a mother twice over, who murdered one of her babies because she was tired of his crying. She threw the baby in the clothes dryer and left him there long enough to cause third degree burns over half his body and reduce his brain to bloody mush. And she was just a little depressed...

There is no mention of the father in the entire article.