Last week I blogged about a disturbing story out of Wisconsin. A twenty-seven year old mother killed her two year old son because voices in her head told her to. At the time the story indicated that the mother, Brenda Thiel, was a government employee.

Call it mother’s intuition, but I had a feeling she worked with children or in social services, and my instincts were right. The Saturday edition of “The Post-Crescent” revealed that Ms. Thiel worked in child intake. If you are unsure what child intake is, it is the department that handles placing children who have been removed from their home for whatever reason, and some of the workers physically remove the children from their homes.

According to the newspaper report Ms. Thiel had a more clerical position, but here is the part that bothers me:

“She also worked with field staff in emergencies, prepared documents related to victim notification and made arrangements for some juveniles’ court hearings.”

I have a feeling the department is tap dancing around a way to say that Ms. Thiel had direct contact with children. They have a lot on the line if they admit this.

The agency is refusing to say whether or not Ms. Thiel would have worked directly with children. That statement leads me to believe that she did or the agency would come out and say that she did not in order to protect themselves. By admitting that she worked with children they have the potential of hearing from a bunch of very concerned and angry parents, but refusing to say anything usually smacks of a back handed admission.


The other thing that bothers me about this story is that Ms. Thiel worked with social workers every day. These were professionals that were trained in helping people and working with adults with mental illness who were working to get their children back or whose illness prevented them from being able to parent their children. I have to wonder if they saw signs in Ms. Thiel that could have prevented this tragedy.

A woman who is hearing voices telling her to kill her child probably had some outward signs that things were not right in her life. She was working in the very agency that would have removed her child and helped her seek services. Did the agency turn a blind eye or dismiss signs because she was an employee?

I sincerely hope that she exhibited no signs rather than her co-workers not protecting a child. I’m sure there is much more to come on this story. The sad part is that a young child died a senseless death.

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