2023-09-25 07:11:00
It is an extremely complex case that the Hainaut Assize Court will judge from this Monday. A woman, aged 29, must answer for infanticide. The victim was a 9-month-old infant who, according to the public prosecutor, she suffocated in her hospital room.
Which she disputes. Superimposed on this initial difficulty is the condition of the accused who, according to experts who examined her, suffers from “Münchhausen syndrome by proxy”.
This syndrome, according to the commonly accepted definition, is a serious form of mistreatment, often abuse of a child, during which an adult invents, exaggerates or deliberately causes serious and repeated health problems in the child, before seeing a doctor and taking him to the hospital.
The goal for this person in doing this is to draw attention and compassion to themselves, through the child’s condition.
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An “unnatural” death
The alert was given to the Mons public prosecutor’s office on July 22, 2019 by a doctor from the intensive care unit of Jolimont hospital. He described the death of little Enzo as “unnatural”. The baby was admitted to Hornu hospital on July 16 because, according to his mother, Madissone Massy, he “turned blue” while playing. In Hornu, a new serious cardiac and cerebral episode was noted on July 18. He was transferred to Jolimont where he died on July 22.
The “Münchhausen syndrome by proxy” diagnosed in the accused manifests itself through mistreatment of a child to arouse compassion through the latter.
Different elements disturb the doctor in the history of the infant and the mother. The child has already been presented to several hospitals for discomfort. However, “medical shopping” is often a sign of mistreatment. The mother, who gave birth to a stillborn daughter 13 months before Enzo’s birth, is fragile. His attitude at Hornu hospital, just before the illness of July 18, raises questions.
The hearings of the various medical stakeholders, nurses and doctors, as well as the expert assessments do not dispel suspicions. Sudden infant death is ruled out. The symptoms noted rather indicate asphyxia which would have caused cardiac arrest in the child. This conclusion is contested by Madissone Massy’s defense, on the basis of a second opinion that she ordered.
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Divergent stories
Madissone Massy’s attitude at Hornu hospital is not consistent. On July 18, between 12:30 p.m. and 12:35 p.m., she rang the room bell four times to alert the nurses. On each of these calls, one of her last said, she stuck her head out the door to say, with a smile, that it was a mistake.
At 12:35 p.m., the mother rang a fifth time. She stuck her head through the nurse’s office door and said, in a very calm manner, that she needed the nurses. Once in the room, they noticed that Enzo was inert and blue. Which would involve oxygen deprivation for 5 to 10 minutes. He was in respiratory arrest.
This unfolding of events, as recounted by the nurses, Madissone Massy disputes. In front of the judge, she only speaks regarding two rings of the bell. She says she left the room. She describes herself as hysterical when the nurses arrived.
Other elements are intriguing: on July 15 and 16, she carried out searches on the internet with the words “suffocated an 8 month old baby” (sic). The investigation reveals that Enzo was admitted to the emergency room 11 times between February 2019 and July 16, 2019. It also shows that medical appointments made for Enzo were canceled.
On August 1, 2019, Madissone Massy was charged and placed under arrest warrant for intentional assault and battery causing death without intent. In March 2020, the indictment chamber reviewed the indictment and classified it as assassination. A month later, while awaiting expert assessments, she was placed under electronic surveillance. This will continue until June 2021.
A psychiatrist, whom Madissone Massy consulted following the death of her stillborn daughter in August 2018, mentioned to the investigating judge a Münchhausen syndrome by proxy in her patient.
A panel of experts, appointed by the investigating judge, considers that the probability of such a syndrome in Madissone Massy is significant.
This question of the mental state of the accused and the possible mitigation of her responsibility should weigh on the debates in the Assize Court which will be chaired by the first president of the Mons Court of Appeal, Philippe Morandini.
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