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Guided by the Light — The Case of Dena Schlosser
A mother’s blind faith led to her baby’s brutal death
Christian hymns filled the air, gospel music providing background melodies to Dena Schlosser’s ultimate psychotic break. God wanted her baby, the voices said, and who was she to refuse the religion which had been giving her guidance thus far?
Fetching the largest knife available, the woman thought that giving her youngest daughter Maggie, just 11 months old, to the heavenly presences her pastor revered would make them whole again.
Beginning on the child, Schlosser severed Maggie’s arms from her body, then commenced slicing through her own limbs before stopping at a deep cut. The bloodshed came as a result of indifference from her husband, fanaticism from her church, and a lack of follow-through from social services.
Dying with one hand in a fist and the other in an open palm, Maggie, short for the name Margaret, died before her mother had even started on the other arm. For the entire Schlosser family, life would never be the same.
Without her medication and guided by a religious leader whose practices were more eminent of a cult than a following, Dena Schlosser committed the unthinkable when she killed Maggie on Nov. 22, 2004. Both mental and physical ailments led…
