Estimate of 20 extra Canadian child deaths per year linked to Robert Latimer’s influence
EDMONTON, AB, September 27, 2001 (LSN.ca) – A study completed by Dick Sobsey, director of Alberta’s JP Das Developmental Disabilities Centre, has exposed the apparently deadly effects of the wide and positive publicity given to Robert Latimer’s defence for killing his handicapped daughter Tracy. The study, covered in the September 24 issue of Report magazine, presents evidence linking at least 20 copycat child killings by parents per year to Latimer’s influence.
Prof. Sobsey reports that, between 1994 and 1998, the number of children under the age of 12 murdered by their parents increased by 45%, at a time when the overall homicide rate dropped by 14.5%. During the same time period the number of filicides (murders of children by their fathers) increased 54%, suddenly by-passing the usually greater percentage of mother-murderers. The greatest increase in these murders by fathers took place in 1997, when the most Latimer supportive articles were published. There was no comparable filicide increase during that period in the United States where the Latimer case received little publicity.
See Report Magazine at: https://report.ca/