Maybe I'm cold. Some kind of hard-hearted, dark world view kind of guy. But sometimes I really don't get people. Their motivations, their actions, their explanations. Maybe someone can help me out with this.

Earlier this week a mother of five drowned and killed all of her children, called the cops, confessed and got a new place to live. In jail.

Her husband, who was at work when all of the action took place, is supporting his wife--the mother of his five children who are now dead.

"One side of me blames her because she did it, but the other side of me says she didn't...she wasn't in the right frame of mind," the father said. Pointing to his wife in a past family picture, he said, "The woman here is not the woman who killed my children." But, no matter her state of mind, it is.

The rest of the family who talked to the press were also very supportive of the confessed murderer.

The reason she did this, an act that police are describing as a "systematic, deliberate" execution of her kids by drowning them in the bathtub (not really the easiest or least messy way of doing this kind of thing), is postpartum depression. Her last child was born six months ago. Obviously, this woman needed a little more help and support before now.

She had been taking anti-depression medication since the birth of her last child. Did she decide not to take the pills that morning? Or was her medication simply not working the way it should have been? And, here's an interesting question: why was a woman who was diagnosed with depression (and obviously having a tough time with it) trying to take care of her five young children by herself?

By all accounts, the family was in good financial shape. The husband works for NASA (this took place in Houston, as in "Houston, we have a problem.") and they had five children in less than eight years. A family picture printed in the newspaper showed the most white, clean and neat family I've seen in a while. Couldn't a nurse or some kind of child care helper been around to keep this brood running around safely during the summer?

The woman tried to commit suicide a couple of years ago, but because the children were not around (they were at a grandparent's house with the father) when this occurred, social services did not feel they needed to take action to protect the children.

But the preventive actions that were not taken aren't what really bother me. Those aren't nearly as distressing as the actions and statements of her family, most of all her husband. Now, I'm not married. I don't have any kids. None of these things are in my immediate future. But if I had even one child and my wife killed that child, I think I would be a little bit pissed at the wife.

Maybe the husband is still in shock and doesn't quite understand that his children are dead yet. All of his statements talk of his kids in the present tense, while the actions of his wife are said in the past. This could be an indication that the husband hasn't quite connected the action (murder), which he has acknowledged, to the actual deaths of his children. It could be that in a few weeks the husband will actually be mad that he is now down five kids. Back to zero, so to speak.

And maybe he blames himself because he didn't try to take more precautions to protect his children from a woman with a history of mental problems.

But even taking all of that into account, I still don't get it. And I'm a relatively forgiving sort of person.

Five kids. All of the kids. Systematically drowned (some reports have the oldest child trying to escape, only to be chased down, caught and then drowned last) and killed, then taken to a bed in a back bedroom and covered with a sheet. I say drowned AND killed because just watching someone drowning usually triggers sympathy and the need to save the drowning life. But she watched them drown under her own hands and watched them die.

I don't care how crazy you are, that doesn't mean I'm going to forgive you for killing all of my kids. Charles Manson was crazy, and nobody is really crying for him and saying he didn't mean it.

Like I said. Maybe I don't get it. Maybe if I was married I would have more love and compassion for the killer than the killed.

Maybe, but I don't think so.

Matt Worley is a cold-hearted bastard sometimes.