Old Woman Magoun and Andrea Yates

Old Woman Magoun felt backed into a corner as Nelson Barry's 14 year old daughter, Lily, had a possibility of being married off. Magoun's first option was to gain custody of the child by seeing a lawyer, which failed. To save the girl's innocence from a corrupt world, she opts to kill Lily with poisonous berries. While it can be argued that Magoun had Lily's best interests in mind from a reader's standpoint, that argument would not hold up in a court of law. Magoun's decision could also be a warning sign for a mental disorder.

In 2001, Andrea Yates, a mother of 5, decided that she too would save her children from the corruption of the world. Deciding that her children would go to hell if she did not do something, she called her children into the bathroom one by one. Without warning the children, she drowned them one in her bath tub. Old Woman Magoun also neglected to tell Lily of her plan. There is very little difference between these two incidents, as both were aimed to protect the innocence of the children, and both were completely unnecessary extremes. Andrea Yates originally went to prison, but was later transferred to a mental institution. If Magoun is making decisions that are on par with a woman convicted of the murder of 3 children, then she did not make the right decision.