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Investigators: The Day That She Broke

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Investigators: The Day That She Broke

Posted: Feb 08, 2010 10:10 PM EST

On a summer day in 2008, we shook our heads in disbelief when we heard the story of a little girl from Roseville who ran bleeding from her home, crying for help. Her mom had stabbed her and her sister and then slit her own throat. All three survived. Now that mother is talking from prison. The girls live out of state now and the family caring for them is aware Sylvia Sieferman did this interview.

Sometimes we don't want to listen to people like Sieferman.

We don't want to hear them try to explain what really can't or shouldn't be explainable. But that's not what this story is about.

Trish Van Pilsum sat and listened to Sieferman talk about how her life as a loving mother fell apart. She realized how much there is to learn from what happened to her and more importantly her children on the day she broke

Sylvia: “My intention, if you can call it that, my intention was to kill all three of us. I slashed my own throat as well and wasn't expected to survive. I wasn't hurting them because I was angry. I wasn't hurting them to lash out. I seriously wanted the three of us to be dead so that we wouldn't have to face the problem any more.” Sylvia said.

What problem could be so overwhelming that you would take a knife to your girls whom you'd worked so hard to bring to this country from China?

Sylvia: She was just a delight to be around. I loved reading with her and playing with her and playing with her. I just had a really good time.

Trish: And her name?

Sylvia: Her name was Hannah. Hannah Rose.

The youngest was named Linnea.

Sylvia: She's a very lively personality, um bouncier than Hannah. More volatile than Hannah, fit in well with the family. She grieved a lot. She had been with a foster family in China and she missed them and felt it keenly.

Trish: Tell me about your love for your girls.

Sylvia: I loved them more than I've ever loved anybody else in my life. I loved them as one loves children, you know that bond that I think most parents have with their children. But I also loved them and admired them as people. They were both just really nice, warm, loving, smart people. They got more and more entwined in my life and just couldn't imagine life without them.

Couldn't imagine life at all

Sylvia: We were physically affectionate. Lots of hugs

Trish: Did you say I love you?

Sylvia: We said that every day and every night.

Trish:It's very hard to reconcile your love for them and what you did.

Sylvia: It's very hard. It's impossible for me to believe. I don't think I ever wanted to hurt them, to harm them. I thought of it as I wanted it all to come to an end. There was no way I could take care of them any more and I snapped.

Trish: so what happened?

Sylvia: I lost my job. A lot of people lose their jobs. That's true and we were fine for a few years...

Temp jobs and consulting work plugged the hole but not completely.

Sylvia: I didn't really start to get worried for a couple of years. The jobs lined up one after the other pretty well.

But just before she'd lost her job she'd done a big remodel on her house.

Added a second story with enough bedrooms for every one and a nice big family room light and open.

Sylvia: I knew it would be a stretch but I didn't forsee any other expenses.

She couldn't afford the payments and put the renovated house on the market. Before it sold she bought a townhouse

Sylvia: We all made the same assumption, that it would sell quickly and it didn't.

The housing bust was just beginning. For Sylvia it was the beginning of the unraveling of it all.

Before the house went into foreclosure she hoped for a short sale. The bank wouldn't budge.

Sylvia: Several prospective buyers got away while we were waiting for decisions. Trish: How was that for you?

Sylvia: Nerve wracking, by then I was starting to eat into my 401k savings. I had exhausted my regular savings account.

The pressure deepened her depression.

Sylvia: I was drinking.

Trish: How much?

Sylvia: A lot. I had been a daily drinker for a long time and this seemed to exacerbate it. I would drink even in the day time just kind of sit around in the evening with my fingers crossed hoping things would work out.

Trish: Did the girls know you were drinking?

Sylvia: They did know. I didn't hide it from them.

A couple of years before that summer she had seen a psychiatrist and went on anti-depressants.

Sylvia: That was when I really started to feel desperate.

Trish: What do you mean desperate?

Sylvia: I was feeling like a failure.

And terribly, terribly isolated. She was missing the support of former coworkers. She had no close family to speak of. None in town at all. just a few neighbors she could talk to.

Neighbor: She actually did say things.

They took her seriously. Took her to the hospital. She ended up in the psyche ward but only for six days.

Neighbor: unfortunately, it fell through the filters.

Sylvia: I had a good lead on a job and I was very eager to get out of the hospital and pursue that particular job lead. I remember arguing I'm okay now look I've calmed down. I have this interview on Tuesday I really can't back out on the interview because that would mean no hope.

They tinkered with her meds. She had some therapy. She doesn't remember even talking much about her suicidal thoughts.

Sylvia: I downplayed those feelings and said I felt back on my feet again and ready to go back and interview for that job and pick things back up again.

Trish: So you don't blame them for letting you go?

Sylvia: I guess I was convincing.

Trish: And did you believe it yourself?

Sylvia: I did believe it myself. I was very enthusiastic for this job prospect.

Trish: Should they have kept you? I don't know. It was a busy and overworked ward. Ideally they should have. Ideally I should have had lots of one on one therapy. There should have been more pushing to see what my intentions were.

Trish: So you went back to the kids?

Sylvia: Yes.

Trish: Were you better?

Sylvia: I was better for two months.

Trish: And did you get that job?

Sylvia: I came close but I didn't actually get it. I was turned down and at that point in August I had no prospects.

Trish: So what happened after those two months?

Sylvia: Then came the day that I broke.

The day that she broke...

Neighbor: I wasn't surprised. I knew it was coming.

Her oldest daughter needed new shoes. That one, small, simple thing simply did her in.

Sylvia: I remember standing in JC Penny's paralyzed looking at shoes thinking I don't know where the money's going to come from.

She bought the shoes. That set the girls to bickering.

Sylvia: That was when I lost control. I don't remember much after that. I would give anything to undo what I did.

There are fragments in her memory...

Sylvia: I remember taking the knife and going upstairs and putting the knife to Linnea's throat. I remember nothing after that until waking up in the hospital. A few little snatches of talking to Hannah and her saying no mom, don't do this. But I don't remember what I was doing. Just that little snatch of conversation and blackness again.

And when, in the hospital recovering from her own stab wounds, she realized what she'd done:

Sylvia: I felt defeated. Totally lost.

Trish: What might have changed this?

Sylvia: Being kept in the hospital. Having that danger taken more seriously. But I didn't see it coming. It isn't that over the course of a few days I was planning or envisioning doing what I did. It just came on me really suddenly and terrifyingly and I lost control.

There is no point in re-living this unless there is something to learn.

like the danger of failing to call for help.

Neighbor: She didn't have a lot of friends and family and she was just very isolated and i think she was scared to ask for help.

And the perils of ignoring the call when it finally comes.

Neighbor: The social worker was on the phone with my husband and said what she needs right now is her kids. She needs a normal life. Let's get her out of the hospital.

Life's never going to be normal. She's not allowed to contact her kids until they're 18. She says she won't seek them out after that.

Sylvia: I will not be a part of their lives again. They are lost to me in that sense.

During most of our conversation, Sylvia seems unemotional. It could be the depression or the anti-depressants but she cries, she says for herself and for them.

Sylvia: Knowing that I got them here from China. Life for orphan girls is not pleasant in China. I raised them with love and self-esteem but then it all came apart.

It's hard to imagine kids recovering emotionally from this. The neighbor and her daughter have been to visit the girls where they've moved out of state.

Neighbor: They're stable and they're totally blessed now. They're doing great.

Trish:What do you hope for them?

Sylvia: Just that they recover and stay safe from now on and aren't too badly damaged from what their mother did to them.

Sylvia Sieferman believes she is mentally ill but she didn't use that as a defense. She pleaded guilty so the girls wouldn't have to go through a trial.

Relatives stepped forward to take the girls. Family Sylvia didn't even think to ask for help at the time she was struggling.

Sylvia Siefierman believes she is mentally ill. But she didn't use that as a defense. She pleaded guilty so the girls wouldn't have to go through a trial.

A trust fund has been set up for Sylvia Sieferman’s former adopted daughters. Funds will be used for counseling and educational needs.

Contributions can be made at any Wells Fargo branch or they can be mailed to Sieferman’s civil attorney:

Cynthia Stange

1970 Oakcrest Avenue

Roseville, MN 55113

You may make checks payable to Hannah and Linnea Sieferman Trust

2010 Feb 8