Listener, this week we don't have a new episode for you, but I am uploading a Patreon exclusive black label.

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Now, let's get on with it.

The maternal instinct of a mother is an all-encompassing level of emotion.

To love, nurture, and protect their child is biologically embedded, a bond that could never be broken.

That is how it should be.

The life is a complex matrix of relationships, emotions, and decision making, and the human psyche is a powerful fighting force.

Of the violent crime committed in America each year, women account for just 14% of offenders.

But when that violence is against their child, that statistic jumps to over 50%.

Maternal filocyte, the murder of a child by their mother, is a murky understudied arena,

with those natural instincts replaced, with an entirely different kind of drive.

A drive that takes away the very life they previously gave so lovingly.

In almost every maternal filocyte case, the child killed is under five years old.

These children are beaten, drowned, strangled, and smothered under their mother's psychosis, extended abuse,

or a simple desire to live a life free of the responsibility of child care.

Under the grim umbrella title of Maternal Filocyte, sits a subset of cases that stand alone.

These are rare cases where the target of the mother's violence is their adolescent children, and their murder weapon is a firearm.

The choice of a gun to carry out these acts allows the mother control.

Quick method of a most certain death with no physical contact required.

A gun provides ultimate power for the mother, and for victims, and evokes the maximum terror.

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