She stuffed her sons with drugs. When that was not enough, she grabbed a plastic bag [BOOK FRAGMENT]

Ken Holmes was a coroner in California. The case of Gloria Ladd is one of many that he has had to examine in the course of his career. It was special because it concerned a loving mother who took the life of her two sons. The woman first tried to kill the boys with pills, but to no avail. In the course of the investigation, it turned out that this case is not as simple as it seems.

1. Gloria Ledd had two sons. Their family was considered peaceful, and the neighbors said that the boys were “obedient and trusting”
2. Enough to take a solution of 30 crushed tablets from your mother without unnecessary questions and then repeat the treatment
3. We get to know the history of the family thanks to the book “The Case for the Coroner” by John Bateson
4. More information can be found on the Onet homepage

She left a note on the front door: “We are sick”

Cases of alleged homicides are time-consuming for coroners. The police are involved in the investigation all the time, autopsies take longer, and then court testimony follows – unless the suspect pleads guilty – by the district attorney’s attorney.

In many cases, the cause of death is fairly obvious, but there are also those in which appearances are deceptive. For example, the case of Gloria Ladd, a forty-eight-year-old former teacher, unemployed real estate broker. Her husband, a NASA test pilot, had drowned in Florida sixteen years earlier. Their two sons, nineteen-year-old John and eighteen-year-old James, lived with their mother in a modest single-story house on a wooden skeleton in San Rafael. Holmes was summoned there on a warm August night in 1975.

1. See also: What Happens to the Body Right Before Death? It was checked by a neurologist

John was then taking a summer break after his first year at the University of California, Davis. He was a member of university cross-country and track and field teams, he was preparing for medical studies. James, on the other hand, had just graduated from high school and was getting ready to start studying at the same college this fall.

That evening, the presbyter came to their house to take James on a church trip. There was a note on the door: «We are sick. James can’t go. Thank you for the visit”.

The presbyter called later, and when he was talking to Gloria Ladd, she was so incoherent that he got scared and called the police.

The rest of the text is below the video.

Two children were dead. The mother was smoking a cigarette

Holmes found the same sight there as the policemen had seen before. The front door was ajar, Mrs. Ladd was sitting quietly in the dining room, smoking a cigarette, and John Ladd was lying on the floor in his bedroom. He was wearing boxer shorts, a pillow under his head, and was partially covered with a blanket. Holmes noted that his body was cool to the touch at full postmortem concentration, with precipitation patches clearly marked on the lowest part of the body on the side touching the floor. He found no outward signs of injury – abrasions, cuts, or gunshot wounds.

James Ladd was on the bed in the other room. He was also wearing boxer shorts, plus a white T-shirt. His body felt as cold to the touch as his brother’s, full strength and distinct raindrops, indicating that both boys had been dead for about twelve hours.

1. Editors recommend: His skin started to turn blue. The popular preparation was to blame

There were two laconic handwritten instructions on the kitchen counter. They were signed by both brothers, dated the day before, and had the same wording: “In the event of my death, I leave all my material possessions and money to my brother. If the brother does not live, my mother, Gloria Ladd. If she too does not survive, they are to be divided equally between aunts and uncles ».

Near these documents, on the kitchen table, were the savings books of both brothers, which revealed that each had recently inherited thirty thousand dollars from their grandmother.

On the other table, there seemed to be an unfinished, unsigned note in Gloria Ladd’s handwriting, which might indicate a suicide attempt.

As parts of the police investigation report were not released to the media, Holmes omitted similar information in his own report. He later entered them into the records as a confidential supplement. In this supplement, he noted what Gloria Ladd confessed to Bart Stinson.

The mother gave the boys medicines. She said she had jaundice

Holmes had only been in the position for four months, but he already knew Stinson. Over the years, Stinson had earned a reputation as “Marin’s toughest criminal slayer” – that was the title of an article about him when he retired – although neither his appearance nor the sound of his voice would have allowed you to guess it. On the contrary: he seemed to be trusting by nature, and his soft southern accent lulled his interlocutors’ alertness. So it was with Gloria Ladd. Her motive seemed to be financial gain, but it took Stinson a few minutes to establish that she had murdered her sons because she believed that this was the only way to save them. She was convinced that the world would end any moment, and by killing them, she would save their souls.

“The records of the last will have confused many people,” says Holmes. – It was believed she did it for the money. But I listened to her conversation with Bart for half an hour; she was convinced of the rightness of what she had done. Money had nothing to do with it.

1. Also read: “Toxic Lady”. The medics in the emergency room lost consciousness and suffered from convulsions

According to an account given to Stinson, Gloria Ladd told her sons that she had been in contact with jaundice and the doctor suggested that both boys take the medicine he prescribed as a preventive measure. She crushed thirty phenobarbital tablets into water for each one and made sure they drank the solution before going to bed (phenobarbital is a barbiturate used as a sedative and also in some seizures). And since both boys were rather small – James was 165 cm tall and weighed 61 kg, the older John 175 cm tall and weighed 68 kg – she thought the doses would be lethal. But the next morning they were still alive.

Then she gave them three tablets of delamine (delamine is an antihistamine). They had no visible effect. In the evening, just before going to bed, she offered her sons fifteen more phenobarbital tablets dissolved in water. At night, both boys, half-conscious, got up from their beds and walked around the house, staggering on their feet. But also this time they did not die. On the morning of the next day, the mother put a plastic bag over one, and then another, over their heads and strangled them. Before that, she had failed to get John to go back to bed, so she left him on the floor. Later that morning, she took the family’s dog to the local animal care association.

Appearances are deceptive. Gloria Ladd didn’t kill for the money

Holmes learned that Gloria Ladd had once been a patient at Napa State Hospital. Her brother told Holmes that five years earlier she had attempted suicide and had been treated at both the Marin County General Hospital and the local psychiatric clinic. Following the deaths of John and James, both institutions faced criticism for not taking away the mother’s custody of the boys. But social workers didn’t like breaking up families, and Gloria didn’t abuse or neglect her sons.

“They were so obedient and trusting,” the Presbyter told Holmes, “that they must have taken the pills unopposed.”

From Gloria’s doctor, Ladd Holmes heard that a month earlier, a woman had asked for a prescription for one hundred phenobarbital tablets. The doctor refused and prescribed thirty tablets of delamine instead. When she soon asked for phenobarbital again, he ordered her another twelve capsules of delamine. How she obtained phenobarbital was a mystery.

“She was a very quiet lady and her sons were good kids,” says Holmes. – They weren’t taking drugs or looking for a tumor. She firmly believed that the end of the world was near and that she must do so.

The fragment comes from the book “The Case for the Coroner” by John Bateson (ZNAK Publishing House).