I think the point about not much being known is very appropriate, though that will change as information comes out at trial, because this absolutely will be an obsessively documented trial.

I think some of it is that people have no idea how to react to something this horrible and need to find something easy or comfortable to label it with. We’ll learn more with time.

I was young so I only vaguely remember contemporaneous coverage of Andrea Yates but I remember her being treated as a monster. Then, when I read the case details years later, it seemed very clear that her husband’s religious beliefs were a huge factor in what happened to her children and now I feel nothing but pity for her.