Violence toward children: medicolegal aspects.

Andre was wandering the streets of New York City when the police found him. They took him to the station house and finally found out where his mother lived. When they called her, she said "You keep him; I don't want him." The police noticed Andre had a rash, so they took him to Bellevue Hospital, where the diagnosis was chicken pox. That night in the children's ward, a baby in the crib next to Andre commenced to cry. When the nurse left the ward for a moment, Andre got out of bed, seized the crying baby, slammed it against the wall, and threw it on the floor. The crying stopped. A child psychiatrist at Bellevue reported that although Andre seemed normal upon admission, after he had killed the baby, he was psychotic. The psychiatrist also learned that in Andre's home, to cry was bad, and bad children were punished by a beating. Andre's mother and her assortment of boy friends had made this a fact of life for four-year-old Andre, one of the youngest known killers on record.