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Family was on a rocky road before mother flung boys, self from I-30 overpass

12:00 AM CDT on Thursday, March 13, 2008

By STEVE THOMPSON / The Dallas Morning News
stevethompson@dallasnews.com

Just before dawn Wednesday in rush-hour traffic, Sondra Plunk saw a boy falling from the overpass ahead of her.

Mom throws kids off of Dallas overpass (DMN - Video/editing: Kimberly Durnan)
March 12, 2008

He smacked the pavement hard on his right side, but quickly rolled onto all fours. Then he looked up – his wide eyes staring straight into oncoming cars and trucks.
The driver of the van in the lane beside Ms. Plunk slammed on its brakes.
"I lost sight of him because the van hit him," Ms. Plunk said.
The child was one of two boys whose mother threw them from the overpass where Jim Miller Road crosses Interstate 30, police say. Then the mother leapt over the railing herself.
All three survived and were taken to local hospitals. The mother was listed in critical condition. The two boys, Gary Ford, 8, and Derrick Tennison, 6, were able to talk with paramedics, and their injuries did not appear to be life-threatening.
Khandi Busby, 27, may face charges of attempted murder, police said.
She and the children had been riding in a yellow Cadillac with her father on their way to a friend's home, police said. They stopped to get gas at a Shell station along I-30.

Khandi Busby
As her father pumped fuel and paid, Ms. Busby got out of the car with the boys and headed to the overpass, threatening to jump, police said. Her father followed, but did not reach them in time.
"The children were trying to stave off being thrown over the edge, but they were overpowered by their mother," said Dallas police Lt. C.L. Williams.
It was a 22-foot drop.
Investigators said they were trying to confirm whether any of the family members were struck by vehicles after they fell. It appeared that at least one of the boys escaped being run over.
"It's a miracle both kids weren't hit directly by a passing car," Dallas police Sgt. David Burroughs said.
Ms. Plunk agreed. She said that westbound traffic was moving about 35 mph. If the boys had been dropped in the eastbound lanes, where traffic was moving much faster, she said, they probably would have been killed.
"I believe that's the only thing that saved these children," she said.
Police did not say what may have sparked Ms. Busby's actions Wednesday.

Interstate 30 at Jim Miller Road According to relatives and court records, the mother and her children had a troubled history. Child Protective Services officials were investigating Wednesday afternoon while the children remained in the hospital, but they had not taken the two into protective custody.
"She didn't bathe them or nothing," said a cousin, Keisha Phillips.
In 2004, CPS investigators found that the boys were unkempt and wore dirty clothes. Officials provided Ms. Busby with services including day care, food, clothing, help with utilities, and parenting skills training.
The following year, investigators received a report of a domestic violence incident between Ms. Busby and her then-boyfriend. She was arrested, and the two boys were placed in foster care.
They remained there for several months until a judge returned them to Ms. Busby, who was then living with her father.
For years, Ms. Busby and the children have been without a stable place to live, Ms. Phillips said. They bounced between her father's home, rented homes that her father helped pay for, other relatives' houses, and those of her occasional boyfriends.
Late one night several months ago, mother and children came knocking at Ms. Phillips' door.
"We don't have nowhere to go," she recalls Ms. Busby telling her.
"At the time, I don't think those kids had been in school for two weeks," Ms. Phillips said.
Ms. Phillips said that her cousin can be very sweet, but that she also is erratic and has used drugs.
"I didn't think she had mental problems, but she had anger issues," she said.
Ms. Busby worked some as a home health care aide, but she skipped between jobs, her cousin said. She was known to have asked friends to baby-sit for her, then disappeared for days.
Her criminal history includes charges of assault, trespassing and burglary.
In 2002, Ms. Busby was sentenced to a year in the county jail after finding another woman in her boyfriend's home, attacking her with a knife, and stealing her purse.
In 2005, she was accused of scratching a Dallas County detention officer. That case is pending.
Experts say that mothers who try to kill their children and take their own lives do it for a variety of reasons, and that it is tough to generalize.
"It's true that most women who kill their children after the first year of life have some serious mental problem," said Dr. Park Dietz, a forensic psychiatrist in Newport Beach, Calif.
Dr. Dietz, who studies the phenomenon, testified at the trials of two notorious Texas mothers, Andrea Yates and Deanna Laney.
In 2001, Ms. Yates drowned her five children in a bathtub. In 2003, Ms. Laney bashed the heads of her three young sons with rocks, killing two of them.
"When the parent is truly trying to commit suicide and take others with her or him, they generally have the view that their loved ones will be better off with them than they would be in this life," Dr. Dietz said. "Because they've overgeneralized from their own pessimistic, depressive outlook to think the world is bleak and miserable."
Others have more selfish reasons, he said – "something more akin to, 'I'm taking them with me so their father won't enjoy their company,' or 'so that I won't be lonely in heaven.' "
Juries are unpredictable, Dr. Dietz said, but whether such mothers are found sane in court is supposed to depend on whether they understood what they were doing was wrong.
"Whether they, in fact, knew it was against the law, wrong in the eyes of society, wrong in the eyes of God, etc." he said. "Some mentally ill people know it's wrong; some don't."
Ms. Phillips said her cousin seemed despondent at times, complaining that she couldn't take care of her children and, because of them, couldn't keep a boyfriend.
She even mentioned suicide, though Ms. Phillips said she had no idea how serious Ms. Busby may have been.
"I can't take this," Ms. Busby told her cousin once. "I just feel like killing all of us."
Staff writers Kimberly Durnan and Tanya Eiserer contributed to this report.