Military Mom Sentenced to Life in Prison for Shooting Son and Daughter: "I Don't Know Why"
16 May, 2014 by	Cassy Fiano
Julie Schenecker, married to Army Col. Parker Schenecker, stunned the nation when she shot her teenaged son and daughter in cold blood in 2011. Her defense team tried to avoid responsibility for her crimes by claiming she was insane at the time of the killings, but the jury didn't buy it, sentencing Schenecker to life in prison.
A Florida mother has been found guilty after a jury ruled she was sane when she shot dead her two teenage children.
After a day of closing arguments on Thursday, the jury returned their verdict on Julie Schenecker, a military wife who killed her 13-year-old son Beau and 16-year-old daughter Calyx in Tampa in 2011.
Schenecker, 53, was found guilty on two counts of first-degree murder after prosecutors argued that she was sane at the time of the shootings.
… In her journal, one entry read: 'I offed Beau on the way to practice. I accidentally shot the window then shot him. One in the side of the head and one in his mouth because he became so mouthy just like Calyx.'
Another entry, about her daughter, read: '[I] walked up without [Calyx] reacting, and shot her in the right temple. Then shot her in the mouth, her sassy little mouth.'
It was almost laughable for her defense to be insanity, considering that the woman planned the murders out for weeks in advance, even complaining of the 72-hour waiting period after buying a gun because it would "delay the massacre". The idea of potentially granting freedom to a woman who killed her own children would have been unconscionable.
Also see: Why Does God Allow Bad Things To Happen To Good People?