Shillingsworth mum ’threatened to kill son’
Posted by AAP on October 8th, 2009 | Category: Abusive Women child abuse child murder Child in suitcase mother abusing child mother denying contact mother murdered child mother neglecting child Murder Violent Women
A MOTHER threatened to kill her toddler son a year before violently shaking him and dumping his body in a suitcase, a Sydney court has been told.
AAP | October 08, 2009
- Court told mum threatened to kill toddler
- Threat was part of a custody dispute
- Boy later found dead in a suitcase in a pond
A MOTHER threatened to kill her toddler son a year before violently shaking him and dumping his body in a suitcase, a Sydney court has been told.
Two-year-old Dean Shillingsworth's body was found in a suitcase in a duck pond at a park in south-west Sydney in October 2007. Rachel Pfitzner, his mother, pleaded guilty to his murder in August.
At her New South Wales Supreme Court sentencing hearing in Sydney today, the court was told she had threatened to kill her son rather than return him to his grandmother, Ann Coffey.
"I will kill Dean before he goes back to Ann," Pfitzner said a year before the murder, the court was told.
There was a continuing custody dispute between Pfitzner and Ms Coffey.
The court also was told Ms Pfitzner was on a suspended sentence for a violent crime when the murder occurred.
Crown prosecutor Mark Tedeschi QC said Pfitzner was "irrational" in her hatred of her son, who reminded her of her estranged lover.
Mr Tedeschi said Pfitzner believed the child was provoking her.
"On one hand, she wanted to be seen as the mother of the child," Mr Tedeschi said.
"On the other, she hated the child and was cruel to him."
In a victim's impact statement read to the court, Ms Coffey said Dean acted differently when around his mother.
"I was Dean's grandmother, friend and protector," she said.
"He was scared of his mother and would run away and hide when he thought she was coming."
The statement was read to the court by Detective Sergeant Andrew Marks - the officer in charge of the case.
Ms Coffey said she now struggled with alcohol dependency and had been admitted to hospital on numerous occasions since her grandson's death.
"I feel so down and out and can't find happiness. I use alcohol to block everything out," she said.
"I am very lonely without my beautiful grandson.
"I cry every night because I hear him everywhere. I feel like I am going mad."
The hearing, before Justice Robert Hulme, will resume in the same court on November 27.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,26182402-421,00.html
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