Murder Antidepressants 06/01/2005 Alabama Postpartum Depression: Mother Kills Infant Summary:

Paragraphs 4 through 6 read: "Her husband, James Keith Haskew, then took the phone."

"'We are not going to go through this,' he told the nurse. 'I am not going to put my wife through this.'"

"Annie Haskew started taking antidepressants and seemed to improve, the court records say. Jarred, however, did not improve. She brought him to the clinic because of crying and vomiting, but missed follow-up appointments."

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Mom enters guilty plea in death of infant

Annie Mae Haskew, 22, sentenced to 15 years in prison
Thursday, January 06, 2005
By KAREN TOLKKINEN
Staff Reporter

GROVE HILL -- A young Thomasville mother who suffered from postpartum depression pleaded guilty this week to manslaughter in the smothering death of her 10-week-old son, according to court records and Clarke County District Attorney Bobby Keahey. She was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Annie Mae Haskew, 22, was originally charged with capital murder and faced the death penalty. She was indicted in August, 10 months after her baby, Jared Jacob Haskew, died in a Thomasville hospital, according to court records. She pleaded guilty Monday in Clarke County Circuit Court after serving about 17 months in jail.

Several weeks after Jarred was born, Haskew called an obstetrics nurse, saying the baby cried all the time and she couldn't deal with it, court records say.

Her husband, James Keith Haskew, then took the phone.

"We are not going to go through this," he told the nurse. "I am not going to put my wife through this."

Annie Haskew started taking antidepressants and seemed to improve, the court records say. Jarred, however, did not improve. She brought him to the clinic because of crying and vomiting, but missed follow-up appointments.

"One time, while sitting in the waiting room at the clinic, another parent told the receptionist that the mother should be reported to DHR because of the way she was treating the two children in the waiting room," the file says. It does not indicate whether social workers at the Department of Human Resources were contacted.

Haskew was named as a possible accomplice in the indictment. However, he was not charged. He could not be reached for comment.

Haskew said she fed Jarred and put the baby down on his back, according to the file. Fifteen minutes later, the baby was not breathing.

The autopsy report, however, says that Jarred's stomach was empty, and there was no indication that he had thrown up. Marks on his knees, the report continued, suggested he had not been lying on his back. And tiny abrasions on his nose could have meant he was smothered, or that someone else had pinched his nose during attempts to revive him.

In the end, the autopsy revealed a problem, that, had it been discovered earlier, would have eased Jarred's troubles and the stress on his parents.

Jarred was allergic to milk and soy formula.